Standstill, Asphyxiating
by SkeletalChild
Summary: Post-epilogue. Naturally, Harry could never love the Dark Lord, but living without him has just never been an option. 19 years later, life has come to a standstill for both of them, but the Lord will have what is his, his alone. HP/LV, kinda-anti HP/GW.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Hey there! So, this is a kind of multi-chaptered sequel to Experimental, which was only one chapter and is technically finished. This has little to do with its prequel, but takes place in the same universe, only much later, the beginning scene right after Harry, Ron and Hermione talk to Dumbledore's portrait in the Deathly Hallows.

Canon, with the exception of that one night between HBP and DH, remains pretty much the same. Now, I've moved on to slowly killing canon after DH, although the horrid epilogue still happens in my universe.

I'm not a Ginny-Fan myself (actually, I'm an Anyone-But-Ginny-Fan), but for the sake of the plot, I'll refrain from portraying her as an annoying b****, and accept that she means a lot to Harry. He just can't help cheating on her.

I dedicate this to all these nice, cool, smart, beautiful... you get the picture... people who took the time to review the prequel, Experimental. These are: natalie668, Walna alaioka, Cool Pen Names Are Tricky., Giara Gryffindor, My Solitude, smiles, Cyranothe2nd, Jacamar, enchanted nightingale, ., PyroxMCRxFan, Silverhineko, DeadandPerfect, Barranca, basiln, Shizaka no Taisho, Ignatia Emrys Nox.

Warning: Generally, this story has mature themes, sometimes more and sometimes less. Honestly, who gives? This chapter in particular has some a sexual content and a little bit of necrophilia, but nothing bad, really. It probably cotains grammar and spelling errors as well, I wouldn't know.

Disclaimer: Okay, fine, so it's not mine, nothing's mine, I'll admit it, just please keep Ginny away from me!!!!

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Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 1

Skeleton In The Closet

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Ron and Hermione were holding hands as they left Dumbledore's office, Harry trailing a little behind. A small smile formed on his face at the thought that from now on, they could finally live without fear. And finally, there was nothing standing between himself and Ginny...

... nothing, but...

He shook his head, as though trying to shake off the unbidden thought that had crossed his mind. He had chosen not to dwell on this particular matter, and until now, he had in fact hardly done so at all, concentrating only on the task at hand. Yet, in the end, the memory of the unspeakable thing that had occurred last summer, and as soon as it was over, seemed like nothing but a bad dream, was clawing at his mind.

"Harry?" questioned Hermione, noticing that he had mentally spaced off. "Are you alright?"

"Huh? Erm, yes - no, I mean, yes, I'm okay... Could you guys just go back without me, though, I need a little time to think."

They gave him slightly worried looks, but both nodded.

"I'll come after you in a minute," Harry assured with a forced smile.

Ron and Hermione hesitated, but went on in the direction of the Great Hall, where celebrations were still at large.

As soon as they had disappeared around the next corner, Harry pulled the invisibility cloak over his head and took off to where he had seen someone take Voldemort's body. He was not quite sure where they had taken him, so he had to try a number of doors before he found the classroom where a bundle of dead flesh and robes that had once been the Dark Lord had been carelessly shoved into a corner, discarded like a piece of rubbish.

Silently, he closed the door behind him and leaned against it, averting his eyes from the corpse and breathing heavily in and out. Now that he was here, he had no idea why he had even bothered to come in the first place.

What was going to happen with the body, anyway? Surely, they were unlikely to give him anything like a proper burial, weren't they?

Then, as though he were a puppet directed by invisible strings, his limbs moved forward on their own, toward the corpse, kneeling down beside it. The Lord's broken body was huddled twisted at an awkward angle, and Harry thought that he must be rather uncomfortable.

Warily, he reached out for a bony shoulder and turned the body around so it was lying on its back, and hastily pulled his hand away like he had burned himself. Something had fallen out of Voldemort's pocket and clattered to the ground. Harry took the yew wand, brother to his own, and examined it. It felt no different to him than his own did, contrary to whenever else he had used another's wand. Of course, Voldemort wouldn't have thrown it away just because he had found a better one. Harry put it into his own pocket, noticing that one of the dead man's arms had been caught under the back. Harry wrinkled his nose and pulled it out. Judging from the impossible way it was bent, it had to have broken either when Voldemort had fallen in the Great Hall, or later when he had been brought here, ungently.

His feeling of disgust briefly washed away by something else, Harry laid it down and straightened it the way he thought it belonged. He pulled his sweater off and placed it under the head like a pillow. Then he sat back, crossing his legs and looking over his work.

Yes, the Lord looked almost peaceful now... well, not quite, but at least he was more comfortable than before, Harry supposed. Dull, milky red eyes were staring right through him. These eyes that had glared at him in hate, rage, that had mocked him, that he himself had caused to reflect pain, and that had, on a single occasion, softened their expression towards him, were now glazed over, devoid of any kind of emotion, of any life.

Served the son-of-a-bitch right, just right.

Then again, the deformed baby-like thing, eternally tortured... when really, this man, who had once been a little boy, who had never known love, had simply not known better...

Did he deserve this?

If anyone did, it would be him, but Harry was unable to believe that anyone did. However there was nothing Harry could do about it. This creature was beyond any help.

"You should've listened to me," Harry whispered, gently caressing one of the cold cheeks. "I only meant well with you, but you just wouldn't listen." He drew a finger over the outline of a cheekbone. "I didn't expect you would."

Voldemort couldn't possibly answer, couldn't even hear him. He was dead. An empty shell.

"You were too arrogant for your own good, really. You wanted so much, too much, and now you're left with nothing."

Harry brushed his lips over the Lord's forehead, and contemplated closing the lids over the hollow eyes, but decided to leave them open.

"I haven't really even thought about why I came, but I think I wanted to say goodbye. I never liked you, but I guess I really do feel a little bad for you, anyway. You know, everyone is celebrating now, they're all happy you died. Me too..." Feeling rather lost and a little confused, the teen kept talking in a soft voice to the still figure, somehow deeply afraid of the silence that would be unavoidable otherwise. Neither could he completely stop touching the Dark Lord, if only verly lightly. Partly to calm himself down, to have something to hold onto, but also, illogically, to console his dead enemy, he held one of the clammy spidery hands with both of his own, running his fingertips up and down the others and rubbing over the knuckles.

"Remember..." Harry paused and gulped before he continued, "remember that one time when you came to me? That's almost a year ago now. We pretended it never happened. It was kind of nice, actually, though. I still don't know why you did that. Guess I won't find out now. But I do wonder, was it really just curiosity, like, you know, the scientific kind only, or were you maybe just a little interested in me, as a person? I mean, you must really have hated me, you were much too proud not to, but... I don't know, and anyway, I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, sitting here just talking nonsense and you're not even listening. Dammit, I wish you'd say something, laugh about how pathetic I am or whatever, anything would be just as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're gone, but sometimes, it was like we were so close that now it sort of feels like you took something of me with you, like a part of me has been cut off... granted, it's a part I didn't want, but you've been something of a constant in my life, for a long time... you were my purpose... I'll admit that I'm a bit lost without you."

He squeezed the hand tighter. "But it'll all be better now. I can live freely now, and be happy. You never let me do that. Even if it doesn't really feel like a happy ending yet, that'll come in time, I'm sure of it. I'm only in shock at the moment, see? I think that maybe I shouldn't have seen these memories of when you were young, though. I shouldn't have known you so well. Not well enough to feel sad for you. 'Cause I think I am in fact feeling a little sad. Just a tiny bit. I hate you, but I've been infected with something, with sympathy for you. I know you won't like to hear this, and I'm aware you're much older than me, but sometimes when I look at you, I can't help it, I see you as a bit of a child. A terribly stubborn little child." A low chuckle. "That had to be protected, cause it didn't know what was good for it, and what was not. Only, you never wanted anyone to protect you. Or did you, perhaps, and you just never said so? Like this, it makes talking to you much easier. You couldn't talk back if you wanted to. I could even pretend you cared what I have to say."

While talking, Harry had begun lifting the hand up, then letting it fall down into his lap, taking it again and repeating the process over and over, up and down, up and down, up and down. Fascinated each time that it simply dropped back, absolutely limp.

"Look at you, you've become just like a doll." Quietly, he chuckled again. "Yeah, I think you might almost pass as one. You do look like you're made of porcelain, except that you're softer. And now you're the one who's weak. I could do whatever I wanted to you now, see, anything. Theoretically, if I wanted to."

He looked straight into the scarlet eyes in an imitation of their empty stare, not thinking of anything at all. Some moments of silence passed, in which the noise from the commotion in other parts of the castle reached his ears, then, nearly automatically, as though this was something he did all the time, he used one hand to hold the head in place and leaned down, pressing his lips to the Lord's. They did not feel much different in death than they had in life, the only difference being that they were starting to show signs of stiffness, and that this time there was no response. Harry carefully pried them open with his tongue, and slipped it inside. Voldemort's mouth was dry. Harry ran his tongue along the front teeth and nudged the other tongue with his, as if to encourage it to move.

"That was disgusting," Harry remarked when he had pulled back. "Even more so than when you were alive. But I bet you'd hate knowing I stole a kiss from you when you were dead." He contemplated this for a second. "I can't believe you really are dead. Avada Kedavra - poof - and gone, just like that. Well, you ought to be buried. I don't know who'll do that, but I don't think they'll do it nicely. Maybe I could go to the library, as I'm already here at school, anyway, and look up a spell for body preservation, so you don't rot in the meantime." He hesitated, then leaned forward, like Voldemort could hear him better this way. "Do you want me to do it instead? I wouldn't put your name on your grave, though. I do wonder what I should write on that... Or else, if you have no objection, maybe I could, you know, just take you with me, and then we'll figure something out. I don't think you'd mind coming with me. At least not too much, and anyway, I can't ask you. Hm, I even could, but I left the Stone in the forest and I decided it's best to leave it there..." Apologetically, Harry looked into the Lord's eyes again that were still staring unmovingly ahead. "Then again... if you look at me like that... has anyone ever told you that death suits you pretty well, actually? Probably not, so I'll have to do so. You look kind of beautiful when you're all dead. But only kind of. Not really any major difference from when you were alive, except maybe the eyes. I don't get how I sometimes get the impression that you could possibly be beautiful. I truly don't think you are. And yet..."

He kissed Voldemort again. This time, the lips were already slightly parted, and Harry could still feel a remainder his own warmth on them. The way the Lord failed to react at all, did in fact not even notice, stirred something inside Harry, something desperate and scared.

Then, Harry sat back straight. "I can't leave you here, all by yourself. I really can't."

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19 Years Later...

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In the largest bedroom at Grimmauld Place Number 12, Harry was still awake, propping his head up with one arm and watching the sleeping Ginny and listening to the calming sound of her regular, slow breathing. She was lying right next to him, and had somehow managed to entagle herself in the bedsheet so that there was hardly any left for Harry, her hair spread out all over the pillow. Harry reached out and took a strand, twirling it between his fingers. In the dim light of the streetlamps shining in through the window, its vibrant ginger color appeared to have turned to grey.

Taking care not to disturb Ginny in her sleep, he maneuvered himself over to place a light kiss on her cheek, and whispered into her ear, "Goodnight, sleeping beauty."

He made a fruitless attempt to rearrange the sheets and got up. Dressed only in dark blue cotton pyjamas, he silently tip-toed out of the room and down the stairs, easily finding his way in the dark by memory alone. He made a quick detour to the kitchen to pick up two glasses and a bottle of red wine, then continued on his way down into the basement, where the air was heavy with old dust. In between an ancient cupboard and some stapled cartons with unused children's toys and baby clothes, a free space had been cleared before the wall.

"Let me in," Harry hissed at the wall in Parseltongue, and, out of nowhere, a plain wooden door formed in the wall. Since he couldn't very well use his hands, he pushed the handle downwards with his elbow and pushed the door open.

He entered the small hall behind and leaned against the door to shut it. Right after the Battle of Hogwarts, he had secretly built this extension to the cellar, a few small rooms, just about enough space for a single person to live in relatively well. The most complicated thing had been to charm the hidden door to open at his touch only.

The hall was dark, but Harry could see some light through the keyhole of another door, so he went inside, into a room that was lit only by the light of a fireplace, the flames dancing merrily and throwing moving shadows on the walls. An old sofa Harry had taken from the room that was now James' stood diagonally next to the fireplace with its backside turned toward the door. The furniture was a little mismatched, random leftover things threwn together, but it was obvious that someone had at the very least made a good effort at placing them in an orderly way.

"I almost feared you might have forgotten about me entirely," a high voice spoke from somewhere out of view, coldly, "You haven't been around to see me in more than two weeks."

"I didn't have a good opportunity," Harry explained, laboriously creating some space on a small table that was cluttered with paper and books and setting the wine and the glasses down. "I spent a lot of time with Ginny and the kids recently, seeing as we're not going to see two of them until Christmas. It's the first of September today, did you know that?"

"I did, although of course it's not like it matters much to me," The voice sounded a little bitter now. "But I saw the news on that muggle thing, so I keep track of the date."

Harry mentally translated that 'that muggle thing' had to be a derogatory term for the TV in the corner that he had brought down here years ago.

He walked over to the couch, in front of which the Dark Lord was sitting on the floor, a paper notebook on his lap and surrounded by a mess of torn-out, scribbled-on and crossed-out sheets.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you," Voldemort answered without looking up. "Trying to, anyway. You told me about that problem you had at the Department last time, where the Unspeakables refused to give you the entire files on the security measures. I'm attempting to recreate the rituals that may have been performed according to your information, thus concluding the kind of object they would likely be used to protect, although it is rather hard to calculate equations of this complexity if you're not thoroughly aquainted with the exact conditions, and the information you gave me is indeed not very conclusive. Unless you provide me with anything more concrete, I can't promise this is going anywhere at all."

Harry was speechless. He gingerly stepped around the mess and dropped himself on the couch. Recently, some inconsistencies kept turning up around the ministry. An example was that the Unspeakables were obviously concerned about something that had disappeared from the Department of Mysteries, although they were keeping what that was to themselves.

"Wow, that's... that's really nice... of you, actually. Thanks." Voldemort was still not looking at him, instead scooping up the papers on the floor and making a neat pile. Harry continued, "I'm really sorry I left you alone for so long, but I mustn't let anyone catch on, especially Ginny, and she does wonder where I disappear sometimes, and really, recently I..."

"Spare me your excuses," said the Lord coolly, "I don't care what you do. In any case, what else do you think I should do to pass the time than this? If you were being locked up for decades, you would be desperate for any chance to do something that has any sort of point as well, however insignificant that might be." He casually waved a hand and the pile floated on top of another pile on the table. Simultaneously, the bottle of wine opened and filled the two glasses by itself, and they came floating towards the two wizards to linger in the air before them.

"Thanks," said Harry, taking one. The Lord inclined his head to signal acknowledgement and got onto the couch as well, leaning against the armrest opposite Harry and curling his legs under him. They sat in silence, nipping wine and watching each other, until Harry began to feel uncomfortable.

"If I'd known you'd want to help me, I would've brought you a detailed account of everything the Aurors managed to collect so far. I don't think it's much more than what I already told you about, the Department of Mysteries still won't cooperate with us, but perhaps there are some little things that you could use. I just didn't think you'd want to help, so I didn't ask."

"If you had asked, I probably wouldn't have done. Still, bring me whatever you can find."

Harry nodded, knowing fully well that the Dark Lord had been heavily troubled by feelings of uselessness ever since Harry had resurrected him after his defeat, as proven by the way he tried, every now and then, to get somehow involved in whatever was currently going on in Harry's job.

He didn't seem to enjoy hearing about Harry's personal life much, though, but Harry liked to tell him anyway. "We went to visit Molly and Arthur the day before yesterday. Ron and Hermione were there, too. Ginny's always so happy everytime she sees the kids playing together, they get along really well. Most of the time, anyways. James knocked Rose down the stairs when we were there, accidentally, of course, but she cried really hard. It's kind of refreshing how wild he is, but I honestly don't know what to do with him sometimes..."

Voldemort looked pointedly uninterested, but was in fact listening attentively.

"At the station today, he almost made Al panick about how he might get sorted into Slytherin, not that I'd care much, but I calmed him down anyway. I told him that even if he did, Professor Snape was a Slytherin as well, and he was the bravest man I ever knew, I named my son after him, after all."

Harry's narration was interrupted by a half-amused little laugh. Bemused, he asked, "What is it? Snape betrayed you, so what? Get over it."

Voldemort laughed again. "No, no, that's not it. The thing which I personally just can't get over is how people could ever call me heartless when there is someone out there prepared to call their child 'Albus Severus'."

"Oh, be quiet, Tom Marvolo. Anyway, now another one of them is old enough to go to school. Time passes so fast."

"Not when you're dead."

"Can't you ever stop blaming me?"

"No, sorry. I'm sure you'll live." The dead wizard's voice was practically dripping with sarcasm. He directed the empty glasses back to the table. "So how is your darling Ginevra, then? Judging from the lateness of the night, I imagine that the two of you took your time to celebrate the children-free time."

"Jealous?" Harry joked.

Obviously deciding that this did not deserve to be granted an answer, the Lord tipped his head back and studied the ceiling.

"There's a crack up there. See, it's shaped like three quarters of a triangle."

"That's fascinating," Harry commented tonelessly and stifled a yawn. The heat from the fire in his back was pleasantly warm, but it also made him a little tired. "Well, you're right, anyway. Ginny and I did finally get some time alone, and oh, she knows how to make it worthwile."

"I bet she does." Murderously sparkling eyes turned upon Harry. "I seriously am wondering why you keep coming back to me."

"And I'm seriously starting to wonder whether you really might have become a little bit possessive of me."

"I merely thought that if you had anything you wanted now, and your life is so perfect without me... one might believe that you would be able to let go of me."

"Do you want me to?"

"No. I had a taste of death, and I'd rather not go back there ever again." The Lord's face was expressionless. He hated to admit even to himself that he was entirely dependant on Harry, but that did nothing to change the fact that he was.

When he had first awoken in this cellar and gotten over the shock, he had been furious. He had raged and desperately tried to escape, but had in the end resigned, realizing that Harry had, this time, outsmarted him, and that he could not harm... his creator, as it was. If Harry died, then so would he, with no chance of coming back. In an effort to keep his dignity, he had at least made sure to let Harry know that his so-called help was less than appreciated. As time passed, however, with Harry being his only contact to the outside world, he had eventually begun to tolerate the boy-now-man. These days, both of them had grown accustomed to and rather comfortable with each other's company, and most of the time Voldemort even looked forward to Harry's visits. If asked, he would say that it was only because there was never anything else for him to look forward to, but indeed, his ex-rival had slightly grown on him. Yet, this did little to change his feelings of aggression towards Harry, that had at this point also extended towards anyone remotely close to the Chosen One, his immediate family especially.

Harry, on the other hand, still had a life of his own, had a great job as an Auror, had amazing friends and a family whom he loved and who loved him back. In spite of that, he had chosen to keep this one skeleton in his closet. The thing that drew him to the Dark Lord the most, however, was something akin to guilt. Even if he was doing so by means of imprisonment, taking care of the dark wizard made him feel better about himself. Telling himself that the other wizard needed him, could not be without him, felt unexplainably good, and he had managed to create a situation in which this was the truth. Also, he had become used to viewing Voldemort as the only person he could be absolutely truthful with about anything, the only one who knew him through and through. A mostly one-sided thing, as the Dark Lord much preferred to veil himself in obscurity. After all these years, Harry still had trouble interpreting the rare glimpses of emotion he occasionally allowed to shine through.

"So, I also met Draco Malfoy. He's not a bad guy, I know that now, but after everything that happened back then... I actually saved him twice, but I could never see us becoming anything like friends. We're on polite terms now, anyway. Don't know if I already told you, by the way, but his son is called Scorpius."

"You did. So what about it?"

"That's not a very good name either."

"More original than your choices at any rate. Would you be so kind and do me a small favor?"

"Depends, what do you have in mind?"

"Kill Scorpius."

"Hell no. And why Scorpius, you don't even know him."

"You might as well kill the entire bunch of cowardly traitors, but I figured that would be asking too much, so the last heir would have to do."

"Well, that's still asking too much."

"It was worth a try."

Harry snorted and shook his head, unwillingly amused at Voldemort's antics. He had long ago given up on trying to teach the Lord empathy, declaring it pointless. He had even begun to admire the simplicity of the older man's uncaring ways. If your entire world revolved around yourself alone, Harry surmised, then perhaps you had an easier time finding your way in it. Still, Harry wished that Voldemort would learn to regret, if only to save his broken soul. Harry wouldn't be able to delay his fate forever.

He noticed that the Lord had taken to examining his own fingernails, carefully comparing the lengths.

"Is there anything wrong with you?" Harry asked. Some days, they had long and deep conversations, on others they would be all over each other by now, again on others, they would be fighting and insulting each other as badly as they could, and some, like today, the Lord seemed to be in a very strange kind of mood. "Have I done anything wrong?"

Voldemort shook his head, still acting fascinated with his nails.

Harry rolled his eyes and crawled over to the other side of the couch as well. Half-expecting to be pushed away, he leaned himself against Voldemort, guiding the other's arms around him.

The Lord did not object, instead pulled Harry closer so that they could sit comfortably. Long fingers ran through black hair, softly tugging at it and then snaking downwards to caress Harry's neck. It was clear enough what the Lord was fantasizing about as his hands closed around Harry's neck, playfully applying just enough pressure to make it harder for Harry to breathe.

"Is it absolutely certain that I cannot have a window?" he asked.

"Not this again..." Harry rasped.

"I'd really like one," Voldemort said dejectedly. Already knowing that he was fighting a losing battle. He wasn't to put much value on nature, but he had not seen sunlight, had not taken a single breath of fresh air in over nineteen years. "All you have to do is give me my wand for a day, and I can make myself one. I'll hand it back to you afterwards without causing any trouble." He loosened his grip on Harry's neck, letting him breathe freely again.

"I'm sorry, but you know well that I'm not going to do that. And I can't make them myself, you know I've tried," Harry said, truly sorry but not willing to take any risk.

The Lord made a non-commital noise and buried his face in Harry's hair.

"Just stop finding thing to complain about all the time," Harry told him in a gentle voice. "I know it's not a great situation, but you said yourself that this is better than the time when you had no body at all, or when you were really dead. And honestly, it is your own fault after all."

As an answer, the hold around Harry's neck tightened painfully, this time choking Harry until he was struggling and tearing at the thin arms, forcing them away.

"Jesus Christ..." he muttered, rubbing his neck in annoyance. This was going to bruise unless he applied Murtlap Essence later.

Behind him, the Lord smiled maliciously and pulled Harry's body tightly to his own with one arm, using the other one to scratch the soft skin at the nape of Harry's neck.

"Ah, this feels good, don't stop..." Harry said, relaxing against the skeleton-like thing that was clinging to him. "Can't you be like this all the time?"

Voldemort took his time to nibble at the shell of Harry's ear, before he answered, "If you fulfill my each and every demand, then yes. You will see that you belong to me one day, my little Chosen One, and you'll come crawling to plead for my guidance." He trailed butterfly-kisses along the edge of Harry's jaw.

"You must be delusional to believe that," the Auror stated automatically, sighing at the sensation of the gentle touches.

"Maybe, but it's the only hope you have not taken away from me," the Lord hissed against Harry's skin. He slipped his hands under Harry's shirt, letting them wander over his stomach and chest, lightly pinching the nipples and twisting bits of flesh between his fingertips.

Harry tensed at the cool touch on his bare skin, and at the way Voldemort was using his fingers and nails, running them teasingly over his skin in a careful balance between tender and hurtful.

"Kiss me," Harry gasped, turning his head as far around as he could to give Voldemort access to his mouth. The dark wizard ignored him and moved a hand lower, easily able to slide it past the elastic band of the pyjama trousers. He wrapped his fingers around Harry's member that was only just beginning to harden, causing it to twitch a little, and massaged the soft piece of flesh between his fingertips.

Half-closed eyelids fluttering as a thumb glided over the glans and played with the skin around it, pushing it back and then letting go, Harry let his head fall back into the curve of Voldemort's shoulder, moaning for the first time.

That was the sign that Voldemort had been waiting for to stop teasing and tighten his grip on the penis, jerking firmly up and down. With the other arm he forced Harry's shuddering body to remain in place, and bit down into his neck, hard.

To occupy his hands, Harry seized a handful each of the light fabric the Dark Lord's robes were made of, holding on as if for dear life. He was getting close, so close...

"Kiss me," Harry repeated, more demanding this time.

All of a sudden, he found himself unkindly pushed from the couch before he could even understand what was going on. Trying to still his laboured breathing, he looked up at the Lord, who was still calmly stitting there with a a condescending expression on his face, and questioned angrily, "What did you do that for?"

"Get out," was the only answer he got.

"What!?"

The Lord laughed scornfully. "You expected you could come here whenever you please, after leaving me alone for weeks and choosing everything else before me? That I would take you right after you have dirtied yourself with your little blood-traitor slut? That I would gratefully play your little whore whenever you feel like a small change? You should have understood long ago that I am not a toy to be laid aside as soon as you're done with it, Harry."

Shocked, Harry gaped at him. He had had the impression that something was way off before, but since Voldemort had not addressed it, he had presumed that it couldn't be anything too bad. "I - I don't know what to say -..."

"You can leave."

Feeling exposed and as if he were nothing but a frightened child, Harry picked himself up and hastily fled from the room.

Minutes after he had heard the door close noisily, the Lord remained sitting straight-backed on the couch, triumphantly reminiscing about the way he had caused Harry to run from him, most definitely with quite the problem in his trousers. Then he curled up in a fetal position, placing a large pillow under his head and listening to the cracking of the flames, wondering how long it would take this time for Harry to come back again.

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Ginny Potter awoke to the noise of dishes clattering downstairs. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Harry's side of the bed was empty.

She yawned and stood up, quickly throwing a bathrobe over before going downstairs to join Harry. She encountered him in the kitchen, having just finished setting the table and cooking something on the stove. Ever since Kreacher had died ten years ago, they had to cook and clean the house themselves, and as Harry was an earlier riser than Ginny, he was often the one to prepare breakfast.

"Morning, Harry," she said sleepily, leaning in the doorway and taking in the delicious smell of coffee, scrambled eggs and toast.

"Good morning." Harry came over to give her a quick kiss.

"Is Lily up yet? It's pretty early for breakfast, nice of you to make it, though."

"No, she's not up yet. I wanted to surprise you with it, but seeing as this won't get cold, I have an idea how we could still pass a little bit of time..." Harry suggestively wriggled his eyebrows.

Ginny laughed, shaking unkempt hair out of her face. "Oh, really? How about you come and show me, then..."

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Author's Note, the Second: I took some creative liberties in making certain assumptions, e.g. about the way the Resurrection Stone would work. In the one scene where Harry uses it, the dead are not corporeal, hardly differing from regular ghosts. When he talks to Dumbledore, Dumbledore mentions that to Grindelwald it would have meant an army of Inferi. So, for all intents and purposes, in this story let us assume that if you had actually kept the body of the person you are calling back, their spirit would posess that body.

As a spell or curse usually breaks when the caster dies (see Dumbledore petrifying Harry on the tower), an undead person would 'die' with the resurrector.

Now, they normally would not be happy to remain earthbound, but as Voldemort wouldn't even get a normal death, I think it's natural he prefers his half-life to exististance as the thing Harry saw lying around at King's Cross.

If you found Voldemort's behaviour in this chapter a tad confusing, that's good, because it's supposed to be. He has not, however, mysteriously fallen in love with Harry, grown a new personality, a second head, or changed his hairstyle. There's just been a major leap forward in time, and some things did happen to leave an effect. Still, he doesn't actually care about Harry, but he does view him as something like a very complex object that rightfully belongs to him and unfortunately has a will of its own. At many times he is also trying to manipulate Harry. In addition, his condition forces him to stay on Harry's good side.

Harry, pure-hearted as he is, of course views Voldemort as a human being that he has to save from a terrible fate. While he is not naive enough to believe that he could change, on a certain 'safe' level, he wants to trust him.

In further chapters, their strange relationship will become more clearly defined.

If you have any more questions, or just about anything to say, leave a review!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I'm terribly sorry for the long wait, everyone. Had a bit of a hard time here and my mind on other things. So happy that so many people read this, though, I feel like hugging you all.

Hell, did I miss this...

Haven't exactly bothered to proof-read this chapter again and written quite a part of this in a rather drunken state, so I hope there aren't all that many mistakes.

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Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 2

"Harry? Can you hear me?" Ron Weasley waved a hand in front of his best friend's face.

"Huh?" Harry said intelligently, taking the pen he was chewing on out of his mouth. He was having a hard time concentrating on work. He hadn't gotten around to sleep a lot and last night's events kept replaying in his mind. "Oh, sorry... I was kinda distracted."

"By what?"

"Oh, you know, things..."

Ron sat down on the edge of Harry's desk. "Whatever. Listen, here's a thought I had, you know that Elena Dolohov is the person who was last in charge over whatever they were all upset about going missing. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, and it's not like I'm really prejudiced against someone I don't know, just because their parents were Death Eaters, but say if she had actually taken it herself, that'd explain that we didn't notice anyone breaking in or that they won't tell us anything."

"Yeah, I thought so, too, but at the moment that's only a rather weak accusation."

"Yeah, well, now they're acting like nothing's happened in the first place."

"The first reaction said otherwise. And Percy? He must know more, he's the Minister after all."

"I mentioned it, but the git insists it doesn't matter, and we should concern ourselves with something of real importance. Like what, controlling cauldron import?"

Harry made a face. "Can't do much about it... So, are you up to date on the latest standart for bottom thickness?"

Ron hmphed and grudgingly went back to his own cubicle, and Harry resumed chewing his pen.

Currently some things were going on that were simply puzzling him a little. Granted, as far as Harry knew it was no big stuff, but there were minor things coming together and his gut feeling was telling him to be alert. And he had by now experienced enough to learn to trust his instincts. However, there was still at least one thing he could do, but right now Harry was not sure about that at all.

He wondered whether the Lord was mad at him, and whether it would make sense to take him up on his offer to help Harry. Who could tell if he had even been serious about it at all?

In any case, Harry could definitely use the help, even if he was sure that it was not the best course of action to go and bring Voldemort a copy of the files as if nothing had happened.

He thought about apologizing, but honestly, he couldn't quite see what for. What had the Dark Lord been on about? That he was not prepared to dedicate his entire life to him? That he was sleeping with his own wife? That he wasn't letting a mass-murderer run free? As much as he thought about it, he remained convinced that Voldemort had no good reason to complain. Harry had done more for him than most other people would ever have even considered.

Then again, he knew there was no point in reasoning with the dark wizard about some issues. He felt a lot like avoiding him for a while again, but that wouldn't make it better. By now, he had figured out well enough that the Lord didn't take well to being ignored at all.

Quite frequently, Harry felt much like giving up and getting rid of him, but inside he knew that he was nearly unable to go through with that, and unfortunately, so did Voldemort.

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"Fleur firecalled," said Ginny, looking through Lily's drawer for a clean nightshirt. "Her and Bill invited us over for dinner."

"Do you mind going without me?" Harry presented his best apologetic look. "I'm not feeling too well."

"Why, what's the matter? Shouldn't I better stay with you, then?" Ginny asked worriedly. "You really aren't looking well."

"No, that's alright, just go."

"I'll come back early then. I thought we could sleep in the guestroom if it gets late, but if you're getting sick..." She made to put the nightshirt back away.

"No, it's fine, really, I don't mind at all," said Harry hastily. "I only want to get some rest, so it wouldn't be bad if the house is quiet, anyway."

Ginny eyed him concernedly, but let it go and kept packing the necessities.

Harry went to make himself a cup of tea, relieved. That had gone fairly well, but the game he was playing was really not the easiest. Some time ago, he and Ginny had almost had a crisis because he had often been very distant, preoccupied, had spent much time alone (or at least that was as much as she knew) and had all in all been acting suspiciously, not wanting to talk, not having enough interest in playing with the children, making too many excuses and obviously not sharing everything with her...

In reaction he had done the best he could to be there for Ginny and the children as much as possible, with the outcome being that their relationship was now working smoothly again.

Nevertheless, the blunt reality of the matter was that he was still deceiving everyone around him. Well, almost everyone. All that had actually changed was that he was forced to become more inconspicious about it. Harry had grown mostly numb to the bouts of bad conscience he had had toward Ginny in the early stages of their relationship, and lies and pretense had long ago become a daily occurence that came as natural as breathing.

Sometimes he couldn't help questioning the point of it all, of the life he had against all odds managed to build up for himself. It was all he had ever wanted, and he knew that he ought to be grateful to have it, only... if Harry was completely honest with himself, more honest than he ever wanted to be, he would come to the conclusion that since about nineteen years, he was merely going through the motions, acting the way he was expected to, nothing more and nothing less.

There was only one fixed point that he could indeed hold on to, even if that did not belong into the picture at all. And even if it was less of a blessing and more like a disease that Harry had been infected with, a malignant tumor growing inside of him, Harry kept nurturing it.

However, Voldemort didn't seem to understand how hard the whole thing was on both Harry and Ginny, or perhaps he did understand, just not care. It wasn't his problem whether or not Harry distanced himself from his family, he even wanted him to do so.

Harry concluded that he didn't feel like turning this over in his mind anymore now, it only resulted in making his head ache.

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This time, Harry judged it to be more prudent to knock before entering, and ask through the crack in the door, "Can I come in?"

"Feel right at home."

"Thanks."

Voldemort was sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair and staring into space with a faraway look in his eyes. Harry wondered what he might be thinking about.

He put the copy of the files onto the desk; this way, the Lord could take them or leave them. Then he sat down on a wooden chair, not daring to speak first. Minutes passed in silence.

"Look, I'm sorry if I've done anything wrong," he said finally, "I don't know what you want from me, really, you can't expect to be my first priority."

"You need to bring me some new books," Voldemort told him casually. "I don't have any left."

"What is it that we have, anyway? That thing between us. I don't know what to call it, I wouldn't really call it an affair, that's too... well, I don't know, but it sounds way too much like passion or romance. And it's not friendship, either. It's just strange, and seriously messed up. I think there is no word for it at all. What do you think?"

"You're much too occupied with thoughts about inanities... All I know is that you're mine, Harry. Your world revolves around me, whether you like it or not. And without me, you'd fall apart." The Lord said this as though it was the most self-evident thing in the world.

"You can't know that. Maybe I'd be just fine without you."

"Do you seriously believe what you're saying?"

"Yes, of course, that's why I'm saying it," Harry said stubbornly.

"Oh, Harry, you should know better than to lie to me by now. You might as well be dead than live without me."

Harry was silent for a moment, before he said, "Okay, so let's say you're partly right, but I still don't belong to you."

"I have decided that you do. That's all that matters. It's up to you to prove me wrong."

Harry groaned, unwillingly forced to smile as he rolled his eyes.

"Now, stop talking and come and kiss me, Harry," the Lord said softly, looking challengingly into Harry's eyes.

Hearing these words was like being struck by a lightning bolt. Excitement shooting through him, his pulse rate speeding up, Harry realized just how much he had been missing this. The edges of Voldemort's mouth curled up into a smirk.

Harry crossed the distance around the desk and leaned over the other wizard, steadying himself with a hand flat against the back rest and a knee on the chair beside Voldemort. He had wanted to start the kiss slowly, but he had waited so long, and he couldn't wait another second, and the first contact with the Lord's icy lips felt like it was the first drop of water on the lips of a man stranded in the desert.

He kissed him hungrily, entwining his own tongue with the dry, serpent-like one and wettening it with his spit. He felt a hand against the back of his head, increasing the pressure of their touch against each other.

Harry put a hand on the Lord's chest, pushing him deeper back into the chair without anticipating that the shift of his weight would cause the chair to topple over. They fell to the floor and Harry landed on top of Voldemort, reflexively bracing himself with an elbow against the frail man's chest. With a cracking noise, the ribcage underneath gave in, but the dark wizard didn't seem to care. Although he flinched violently and screwed up his eyes, he relentlessly kept his hold on Harry's head and continued the kiss. Harry quickly disentangled his arm from between them and attempted to put his weight off the Lord's crushed chest. Voldemort took this as an opportunity to flip them over. Surprised, Harry couldn't prevent his head from hitting the floor, and for a moment he just lay there, dizzy. Before he knew what had happened, Voldemort had pushed his hands over his head and summoned a scratchy piece of rope to tie them together.

"You shouldn't have neglected your duties toward me, Harry," he hissed through his teeth, an insane glint in his eyes.

Harry swallowed his protest. In the current situation, he was too aroused to bother talking back.

Voldemort sat up on top of Harry and, holding a hand to his ribs, turned halfway around, reached out behind him and waited for a moment. Harry caught a glimpse of silver soaring through the air into the outstreched hand before the dark wizard shook the sleeve of his robe over his hand to hide it.

Due to the injuries he had sustained when Harry had fallen onto him, Voldemort's breathing came out in ragged, irregular gasps. Despite that he wouldn't necessarily have had to breathe at all, most of the time he still did it out of old habit.

He opened the clasp of Harry's robes, under which Harry was wearing muggle clothes. Then, looking over the younger man, he spotted something that caused him to narrow his eyes to slits.

Harry was briefly confused as the Lord reached for his tied hands again, but he understood when he felt a pull on one of his fingers.

"Don't..." he began, but Voldemort interrupted him.

"No longer, not when you're with me," he said decidedly as he laid Harry's wedding ring onto the edge of the desk next to them, "You can take that thing back later, I simply don't want to have to look at it. Don't worry, though, I'll make you forget about it."

He leaned in to catch Harry's lips for the second time, letting his long tongue explore the hot, wet cave that had become so very familiar to him. In a well-calculated motion, he slightly shifted his weight so that he was directly stimulating Harry's groin with the smallest movement. Harry made a sweet little noise and bucked his hips upwards, wanting more. Voldemort ran the split in his tongue along the side of Harry's, squeezing it lightly between the tips before he pulled away and sat back straight. He took his time to observe the other man carefully, the flushed skin glowing with a heat that he himself did not possess, looking deep into the eyes that had turned from their usual Killing-Curse-color into a darker shade of green.

"I want you," Harry demanded, "Now."

"Patience is a virtue, Harry. Admittedly, you certainly do appear to have missed me greatly," Voldemort drawled, "Do you know what I miss the most? Have missed sorely, every single day for nineteen years?"

Harry didn't answer.

"Killing, Harry. That sweet, addictive thrill, the exaltation at holding a life in my hands, such a precious thing, and taking it away at will. You would understand, if only you had ever tried."

The Lord's voice was laced with longing, scarlet eyes glowing as if they were lightened by a fire within, and the gaunt white face had come alive. In his hands he was holding a silver kitchen knife, long, thin fingers lovingly caressing the sharp blade.

"Ah, I would love it, Harry, to be able to push this into your chest at this very moment, and twist and turn it around, feel your hot blood running over my fingers and look into these beautiful eyes, to be aware of the very moment the soul behind them disappears, just like that... but alas, it is not worth the price."

He used the knife to rip neatly through Harry's T-shirt and let the fingertips of his free hand travel over it from the neck down, making Harry feel as though there was cold water running over his skin rather than human flesh.

Harry knew that nothing serious was going to happen to him, yet it was hard to suppress the unavoidable surge of fear at the sight of Voldemort's other hand, gripping the knife so tightly that the knuckles were standing out, if possible, even whiter than the rest of the skin around, and moving closer toward Harry's bare chest. Harry clenched his eyes and teeth tightly shut and his entire body stiffened when the blade broke his skin. With the concentration and precision of a surgeon, the Lord carefully carved something into his flesh. Harry tried hard not to move, tears forming behind his closed lids and lingering in the corners of his eyes.

Then, finally, Voldemort seemed to be done, and Harry warily allowed himself to relax a little, opened his eyes and blinked repeatedly in order to dry them.

The Lord bent down to lick the drops of blood forming on the cuts on Harry's chest. The cooling touch felt both soothing and burning on the open wounds.

The famous Auror strained his head to look at the straight, slightly ornate letters carved orderly into his chest.

Property of Lord Voldemort.

"I could still add, 'And most definitely not of Ginny Weasley', if you want me to," said the Dark Lord with a smile, following Harry's gaze. "Who can tell, she might even like that, perhaps she is as sick of you as I am these days, anyway."

"It's Ginny Potter now, to be correct." Harry teased, having eventually come to the conclusion that his wife was a somewhat sensitive topic to his dead lover, who didn't seem to be as much at ease with the thought of having to share as Harry would have thought. It wasn't as if Voldemort actually cared about him, after all, but then again, it was just like him to want something exclusively for himself.

For a second, the red eyes flared up in anger, then turned cold as ever again. "Earthly bounds, meaningless vows... they don't have any effect on the true nature of things. I'm calling your slut a Weasley, because that's what she is, and always will be," the Lord said dismissively and held the bloodied knife in front of Harry's face. "Lick that off, it's your own blood after all."

Harry frowned, but did so, long ago having given up on questioning his partner's at times eccentric behaviors and wishes.

"It's the same as mine," Voldemort continued, obviously pleased with himself, as though he had just proven a relevant point.

"You're not gonna go about how you took it from me so you could live again and all that crap, are you?" Harry drawled in an exaggeratedly bored voice. "I mean, are you ever going to fuck me, or not?"

He knew the Lord didn't like being spoken to in this fashion, but also that he would let this one go. They both really just wanted the same thing right now.

Voldemort got off of Harry's hips in order to unbutton Harry's jeans and pull them off. He was moving unusually ungraceful, the injuries he had sustained when Harry fell on him obviously forcing him to remain tense. Harry knew better than to offer to help mend the bones with his wand, though, if Voldemort ever needed help he would demand it.

A mixture of relief and anticipation shot through Harry as his hard-on was freed from the restraining material of the jeans. To his pleasure, Voldemort now entirely abandoned his playful hesitation, used two fingers to negliently prepare the younger man's opening, lifted his legs and then without further ado slammed deeply into him.

While the Dark Lord adjusted them both to the new position, Harry closed his eyes and let the sensations wash over him, thus not noticing the hand closing around his neck until his breath was cut off by the sudden pressure. This wasn't new to Harry, he had years ago found out that the dead wizard obviously enjoyed choking him or in some other way hint at the possibility of killing him, even though he never actually did. In spite of this, not being able to breathe still caused a sharp sting of panic rearing up inside Harry's breast. After a number of more quick and hard thrusts, his lungs cramped as he tried his best to remain still against his insticts that were screaming to try and fight against the thing threatening to crush his windpipe. With his hand tied behind his back, there was no point, and he wasn't going to give his former enemy any more satisfaction than absolutely necessary.

More thrusts, more seconds passing in a haze, too slowly and yet at the same time too fast, colors and stars were dancing in front of Harry's eyes that he scrunched up and ripped open wide in rapid succession. He couldn't keep himself from squirming against the firm hold any longer, his lungs were burning, screaming for air, he needed to breathe, more than desperately, did Voldemort not see that? Harry had no choice but to trust him, but what if he didn't notice he was going too far, what if he was to keep choking Harry for even a second too long? The thought manifested in his mind, taking over his entire capability to think clearly, and fearing that the Lord might misjudge his capability to survive without air, the panic grew until there was no room left, surely any moment now Harry was going to explode with it, surely he would fade away, lose consciousness... already, he could feel his senses going, his strength leaving him, he was falling, a deep black hole sucking him in...

And then, just as he was about to tumble into the dark abyss, the weight on his throat lifted, and a very much needed, but all-too-sudden rush of cold air painfully filled his tearing lungs. He sucked it in, much too hastily, the natural rhythm of inhaling and exhaling broken, and breathing turned into a coughing fit.

Even before he had a chance to stop coughing and regulate his breathing, or really take in anything else going on around him, the pressure settled back on his neck, and in the space of a heartbeat, the panic returned, this time in the form of a cold wave washing over him and freezing his senses, vision immediately tunneling, the world around him cruelly ripped away. Nothing existed anymore, nothing but that unyielding pressure and the all-surrounding need to BREATHE...

Just as he could see that Harry was once more on the edge of losing consciousness, Voldemort let go of his hold around the delicate throat, this time allowing the Auror to catch his breath again and meanwhile finishing the last few thrusts before he came. He didn't pull out immediately, just stayed still and waited for Harry to regain his senses. Lifting his head as far as possible in his current position, Harry noted through a hazy cloud that he himself must also have orgasmed at some point, judging from the semen coating the region of his stomach. Slowly and deliberately Voldemort made to move away.

"No, stay like this," Harry rasped, coughing again, and with immediate understanding, the Lord didn't move away, stayed connected to Harry and merely relaxed his body in place on Harry's, elbows crossed over the younger man's collarbones to support his head. Neither of them said anything, just stayed still, their faces only inches apart.

Harry suddenly felt very conscious of his loud breathing, tried his best to keep it shallow and even, as Voldemort, who himself was lying still as stone, was concentratedly watching the wings of his nose flatter, and feeling the up-and-down movements of his chest against his own.

They remained this way in silence, comfortably lying there as one and letting the minutes pass by.

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Ginny knew that it was late, and that there hadn't really been any sensible reason to wake up her daughter a good hour after she had put her to bed in Victoire's empty room, but today she had had this feeling again. This strange, yet so familiar feeling that Harry was by her side and yet somewhere else, at some far-away place where she could never reach him. She had told herself for years that she just needed to give it some time, that sooner or later this feeling would disappear, that one day he would come home to her, entirely there, and they would grow as close as they were meant to be. And indeed, in time things did appear to improve, by now they had three wonderful children tying them together and recently she had been so happy about the fact that her husband very nearly seemed to be all there for her, not only physically, but also with his thoughts. Today, though... not that anything out of the usual had actually happened, but somehow, all of a sudden when she talked to Harry, the feeling was back.

She wouldn't be able to sleep over at Bill's tonight. She had to see Harry, she wanted to crawl into bed with him and let him wrap his arms around her, she had to know he was there with her.

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	3. Chapter 3

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 3

Harry woke up to find himself spread out uncomfortably on the floor with sharp bones digging into his chest. He must have fallen asleep at some point. So had Voldemort, from the looks of it. Just like the dead wizard didn't have any need to breathe, he didn't actually have to sleep, but did it anyway, for the mental rest, if not for the physical. Harry figured that living entirely without any phases in which you could just switch off and dream would most likely become unbearable in the long term.

He had no idea what time it was, and hadn't really intended to spend the entire night down here, but at least Ginny and Lily wouldn't be home and missing him yet. The Potters had slept over at Shell Cottage several times before, and usually had been offered a lavish breakfast in the morning, sat outside on the terrace with Bill and Fleur and talked at the very least until almost noon. This time would be no different, surely, so he decided not to move and wake Voldemort up yet.

Harry squinted to watch the sleeping wizard. Voldemort still had his head supported on his crossed arms, eyes closed and appearing rather content. At times like these, in this rare moments in which he could see the Dark Lord entirely relaxed and off his guard, appearing almost, but never quite innocent, he felt something like affection for him. If his hands were free, Harry thought that he might have given in to the urge to touch him, hopefully lightly enough not to disturb his sleep, he might have caressed those cold, white cheeks and pale lips and gently traced the blue veins that were standing out under the thin veil of skin with such unhealthy clarity.

A few minutes later, his eyes fell shut again, and the next thing he could remember was being unkindly ripped out of his sleep by a sudden splash of icy water.

"Fuck, what - ?!", he shouted out, and blinked the water out of his eyes until he could make out a mischievously smiling Dark Lord standing above him with a bucket in his hand. He groaned.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Voldemort said in his best annoying morning-voice, putting the empty bucket aside. "Rise and shine... I did try it with a kiss first, but that didn't do the trick."

"I'm sure you tried really hard..." Harry grumbled, trying to stretch. "Untie me, will you?"

"Tut-tut, don't be so grumpy, my darling... it doesn't look good on you," the Lord mockingly reprimanded him and kneeled down beside him, carefully putting strands of wet hair out of Harry's face. He wrapped a particularly long one around his finger. "Actually, I could easily keep you here now ... I just wouldn't let you go again ... I think I might just like that, wouldn't you, Harry?"

"I repeat: Untie. Me. Now. Please."

"I will. Soon enough. It's still early, and you're not in a hurry to leave, are you? I've made coffee, by the way, would you like some?"

Harry sighed in exasperation. "Guess so."

Voldemort smiled disturbingly and got up to return with a silver tray, a coffee can and two cups. He sat the tray down on the floor and helped Harry pull his trousers up and get into a sitting position. He contemplated whether he could afford to free the other man of his ties without risking him leaving immediately, then decided that it was safe, looked around on the floor for the discarded knife and cut through the ropes around Harry's wrists. Then he poured black coffee into both cups and handed one to Harry.

Harry carefully took a sip of the warm liquid. He didn't usually like his coffee black himself, but he knew that was all that Voldemort had down here, and right now he was grateful enough for anything that warmed him even a little. His wet clothes were clinging to his body and the cold made him shiver.

The Lord noticed and reached out to rub a hand up and down Harry's back in an attempt to warm him with the friction. It didn't exactly help, but it felt good.

"Yesterday Ginny wanted me to come to see Bill and Fleur with her," Harry told him quietly. "I excused myself from it to be with you."

"That's my darling."

"I shouldn't do this too often, though, I don't want something like this to cause trouble between her and me again, it's not right."

"Do I look like I care? I've said it before, she's no good for you, anyway."

"And you think you are, or what?"

"Hmm... likely not, but you should be more than proud I even bother with you. More than a few people would kill to be in your place, quite literally."

"Yeah, right... Thanks for the coffee, by the way."

"Matter of common courtesy. Your stomach is growling, are you hungry?"

"Well, yes, I think I'll go upstairs and have breakfast once I've finished this." Harry took another mouthful of coffee and put the cup down on the floor.

"Hold on a second." Voldemort clumsily stood up again and went to rummage through one of the drawers until he had found what he was looking for. "Catch." He threw something in Harry's direction that the other wizard instinctively caught. "It's been a while since you gave them to me, but they should still be edible."

Then he sat back down by Harry's side. Harry stared at the thing he had caught, a pack of sour apple gums, and raised an eyebrow. "Interesting choice for breakfast."

"Not good enough, eh? But of course, I suppose that Harry Potter is used to something more... luxurious. Next time I'll make sure to cook you pancakes from nonexistent ingredients, on the invisible stove in my imaginary kitchen."

"I didn't mean it like that, and you know it," Harry said, ripping the candy bag open and popping one into his mouth to underline his point. "Mm, see? ... 's really good ..." He tried his best to speak clearly while chewing.

Voldemort snorted and helped himself to a piece of gum that he held up and examined before putting it into his mouth. "I don't think I've eaten a thing in months, I only ever do it together with you."

"Your loss."

"Anyway, how are your friend Ron and his mudblood? I haven't heard anything about them in a while."

"Their daughter, Rose, I told you about her, she just started at Hogwarts with Al. She'll do great, I'm sure. And did our tell you yet that our little Teddy and Victoire Weasley are an item now? The kids were rather excited when they found out. Apart from that, Ron and I are getting way too much paperwork to do at work, he's almost constantly complaining about it. He just got a driving license, by the way. Had to cheat a little, though. He Confunded the examiner, and then had the nerve to act all reproachful towards Hermione for not believing in him."

"Honestly, you might want to take a leaf out of your friend's book, from everything that I've heard so far he seems to be a way more sensible person than you, at least if you ignore his choice for a wife. Not that I think yours is very much better, the only thing that can be said in her favor is that she does come from a family with a long history. In any case I do believe that just like you, your friend might have a lot more potential than he has ever used. Maybe he should better have listened to my horcrux, it could have helped him bring that out, in return for his services."

"I'm sure he's regretted it terribly ever since."

"For once, there is something we agree on."

"I was being sarcastic."

"Oh, really?"

Harry mock-punched the other wizard's shoulder, who winced slightly, holding his ribs again.

"My god, haven't you healed that yet?"

"No, I like it for now, it'll remind me of you for a while when you've gone."

"You're being strange again."

"Strange, how? Too friendly? Would you prefer it if I tried to kill you again?" The Dark Lord managed to say this in an eerily kind voice while innocently smiling at Harry and ruffling his hair.

"No, really, why would you want a reminder of me?"

"Try spending nearly two decades in some dark basement sometime, and then ask me such questions again. At some point, you are bound to become rather desperate for just about any kind of distraction, as useless as it may be."

"So, reading in between the lines, you're telling me that my only purpose is to entertain you."

"Basically, yes."

"I wonder why I even bother."

"You know that it's your duty. Keeping me imprisoned like this, you're entirely responsible for my well-being."

"Oh, of course... you do know you're a great deal better off being held prisoner by me than by anyone else, don't you?"

"Indeed. I myself have never felt an obligation to take more care of my prisoners than absolutely necessary. There is nothing that could possibly keep you from it, though. I am too much a part of your life, always have been. Without me, you would not be who you are now."

"No, without you I might just be happy."

Voldemort laughed and shook his head. "Oh Harry, Harry, Harry... would it kill you to admit that is not true?"

Rolling his eyes, Harry set his empty cup back onto the tray. "Have I told you yet that you are driving me insane?"

"A few times, yes. And have I told you yet that I really don't care? Not that there's all that much sanity left for you to lose, anyway."

"S'pose so." Harry felt tempted to stay still and enjoy the moment, especially as Voldemort had just laid his head on Harry's shoulder and begun to draw circles into the nape of his neck with his nails, but he made himself get up.

"I should go upstairs now, most likely Ginny isn't there yet, but I also have to make it look like I'd been there all night, fix my injuries and all that jazz..."

The Lord looked disappointed, but nodded wordlessly. The image of a neglected child crossed Harry's mind, and he couldn't help feeling a small pang in his chest that he ignored.

"If I can, I'll leave her a note that I'm at work and come back later."

"Don't forget my books."

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Harry pushed the door leading to the hall from the top of the basement stairs open without much care and it hit the wall with a dull noise.

"Harry? Harry, are you there?" he heard Ginny's voice through the open kitchen door, sounding rather agitated.

He cursed under his breath, becoming conscious of the bloody letters etched into his chest made a quick, makeshift effort to conceal them with what was left of his shirt, and stumbled into the kitchen. Ginny had just pushed her chair back and risen from the kitchen table. She was still dressed in yesterday's clothes and looked tired and worn-out, as though she had not slept at all.

"Ginny," he said, nonplussed, "You're back already ..."

"Where in heaven and hell have you been? I've been waiting here all night for you!" she hissed angrily as soon as she caught sight of him. Only then did she properly take in his appearance, her eyes widening at the sight of his ripped and bloody clothes and the dark bruises on his throat and arms. Her expression immediately turned from anger to worry. "Oh, Harry... what happened to you? Have you been attacked?"

"Why have you been waiting for me? Is Lily here, too?"

"Just so - Lily's in her room - you said you were feeling bad yesterday, and I couldn't stop thinking about you, and then I came home and thought you would be here, but you weren't..." The words blurted out of Ginny's mouth very fast and shrill. "And where have you been, and are you hurt?"

"Erm - I'm fine, can we talk later? I'll go get changed now."

"HARRY!" Ginny screeched, outraged, "You can't just turn up after disappearing without explanation, AGAIN, and then stand in the door looking like you've been in a fight or something and act like nothing's the matter..."

Harry, who had already turned to walk upstairs hesitated and turned back. "What do you want, Ginny?"

"What I... you're asking me what I want?! I want an explanation, and a very good one please!"

"I... there was a bit of an emergency at work, I really don't feel like talking about it now, but everything's fine, okay?"

Uncertainly, Ginny walked over to him and pulled him into a tentative embrace. "I don't know anymore if it's only me being paranoid, Harry, but I always feel as if there was a lot you don't want to talk to me about, it's like you're slipping away..." she whispered, "and I don't know what to do."

Harry rubbed her back awkwardly. "I'm sorry, honey, but please don't think too much into it, there's no reason to."

"If there was anything ... anything that bothers you, or that I should know about, you'd tell me, right?" The red-head looked into Harry's eyes.

"Yes, of course I would," he lied with practiced ease, "but right now, there really is nothing to tell."

Ginny nodded, somewhat reassured but still doubtful. Harry tried to disentangle himself from her when the shirt that he had so loosely covered his chest with slipped out of place. There was only a small stripe of skin visible for a second, but Ginny didn't miss it. She wanted to reach out to get another look, but he backed away.

"Seriously, Harry, you really are injured, you can't deny that. Why don't you show me? I might be able to help, and if not, I can still kiss it better ..."

"No, I'm going upstairs now," Harry said quickly and hurried up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking the door behind him, relieved to have gotten away.

#################################################################

Just as he heard the door close behind Harry, Voldemort took the ring that Harry had forgotten to put back on from the table and hid it as well as he could, in a place that only someone who was already dead possibly could use to hide something. Then he laid back and waited for a while, until he decided that if Harry had been going to come back, he would have done so already. The Dark Lord knew that Harry had been sincere about intending to, but who knew what had held him up. Perhaps the slut had come back. Once the initial bout of indignity had passed, Voldemort didn't particularly care anymore, as long as he would only get some new books before he went insane from being caught here alone with nothing but his own thoughts.

#################################################################

Lunch that day was a tedious affair. Harry was grateful for Lily's presence, simply because that was the only thing that kept Ginny from starting yet another discussion about why he wouldn't open up to her. He made a point of acting exceptionally attentive and loving towards his wife, helping her set the table, asking questions and complimenting her cooking skills. Nevertheless in between Harry's attempts to lighten the mood they repeatedly lapsed into awkward silence. Several times he even found himself thinking that it would be much more comfortable to be able to take his plate downstairs and eat with the Dark Lord. He found himself comparing the carefully prepared chicken dish set orderly on expensive plates eaten at a table with his family with the scanty snack that he had shared this morning with the man he ought to hate to most. He banished these thoughts as soon as they came to him, though, and observed the red-haired woman across the table.

Ginny was confident, brave and energetic, she supported him in everything he did, at least in the things that she knew he did. Even after giving birth to three children, she still looked youthful and lovely, she was still able to turn heads when she walked into a room. She loved him, had never felt for another man the way she felt about him, and he could count himself lucky to have her, his princess. By all means, she should be the first person for him to turn to and rely on. She would be the one to hold him should he ever happen to fall, not Voldemort. The Lord could not be trusted, never. Even though by now Harry was sure that he was the one who knew him better than anyone else ever had, this was still clear to him, as a matter of fact, especially now that Harry knew him so well.

Harry was responsible for him, and he would give him as much care and attention as he could spare, but he was not going to repeat his mistake. Never again would he risk his relationship with Ginny for something that uncertain and... wrong. Yes, for that was what it was, entirely wrong, regardless of the moments in which it felt so very right.

###################################################################

Creating an unregistered portkey might have been illegal, of course, but it was easy enough, and people did it more often than not to avoid leaving registered proof of their journeys, or having a Ministry official look through their belongings. In Elena Dolohov's case, both reasons applied. She had no way to be sure if she would ever find what she and the others were looking for, but they would simply have to try, and she was more than glad to be one of the few that had been approached by distant relatives on the continent that had deemed her trustworthy. Her uncle, the last surviving family member that she had, was dying in Azkaban. So far, he had proven himself surprisingly resilient, given his rather advanced age, but time was running out.

And even if Antonin did not survive long enough to ever see the light of day again, all hope was not lost. Currently, in spite of the fact that the war had been over for years and that she herself had not participated in it, as soon as people found out her name they became alarmed and more or less obviously treated her with suspicion before they actually knew her. Elena had become used to this, knowing that this sort of people were beneath the likes of her, but the old families would not be shunned, the name of Dolohov would be associated with honor and nobility again if it was the last thing she did.

##################################################################

A/N: I know this chapter is pretty short and mostly filler, at first I had intended for it to be way longer, but then I figured this was a good place to break it off, the rest just seemed to belong into a new chapter.

Btw, I'm sure most readers will be somewhat astonished at how 'nice' Voldemort was acting here. It's not exactly usual for him, indeed, but don't forget he has ulterior motives in many of the things he does.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I should mention before that there's some dub-/noncon in this chapter, so if that's not at all your cup of tea watch out.

################################################################################

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 4

Later in the afternoon, Harry made a trip first through several bookstores in Muggle London and then to Knockturn Alley to pick a variety of new books for his prisoner. Away from the awkward situation at home he felt at ease, so he took his time browsing through the shelves, trying to imagine what might interest the Dark Lord. Although by this time this was normalcy to him, he found it a little bit disquieting how he often thought about Voldemort with something like fondness, how much he enjoyed, even cherished doing something for him. After all these years, long after life with Ginny, as wonderful as it was, had become a matter of course, the man never ceased to fascinate him, continually challenged him, and then again proved to be a nearly indispensable source of comfort. Eventually the sun began to set and it was time to make his way to the Leaky Cauldron where he and Ron had arranged to meet for a drink.

Ron was already there when Harry arrived, slouched on the wooden bench of a corner table with his back to the wall and waving Harry over as soon as he had spotted him. "Oi, Harry! I've already ordered drinks for both of us, hope you don't mind."

"No, course not," Harry said and sat down on the bench as well. "How's everything?"

"Eh, I'd be better if I could take a really long holiday now. Other than that, just fine though. And you?"

"Meh, alright. I wouldn't mind joining you on that holiday."

"Oh, and I got a letter from Rose today, I might've jumped off a bridge if not for Hermione. Rosie wrote, and I quote, that 'Scorpius Malfoy isn't really all that bad, actually he's pretty nice once you bother to get to know him'. I wrote back that I didn't want her to get to know him in the first place."

The waiter brought them two butterbeers and for a while they just talked about this and that. In between looking after his family and sneaking away to see the Lord when he could, Harry had not often played Quidditch in a while, much less bothered to keep up with scorings or watch a game, and as Ron relayed to him in detail the most recent match of the Chudley Cannons against Puddlemere United, he was reminded of what he was missing out on. He resolved to take his children to see a Quidditch game at the first available opportunity.

When Harry lifted his by then third glass of butterbeer to drink, Ron suddenly frowned. "Are things alright between you and Ginny, by the way?" he asked.

Harry hesitated. "Pretty much. I suppose any couple that's married for so long has a few conflicts every now and then, never anything serious though. So it's really fine." He hoped that Ron would be satisfied with this. A protective brother was something he didn't need.

"Okay... just wondering, because you're not wearing your ring today, and usually you always do."

"Oh... yes, I had to put it off earlier today, forgot to put it back on."

"Right then. Sorry, I'm not meaning to pry, it's just that Hermione did mention something about Ginny talking to her about your relationship. Wouldn't tell me exactly what, though... women's talk, she said."

"Hm, no idea... in any case I guess we get along way better than you and Hermione," Harry laughed, "not that everyone's not used to your constant bickering after all these years."

"That is never going to stop. I might even say it's one of the main foundations of our relationship."

"I've always figured it must be like foreplay to you two."

"The very best kind." Ron smirked. "You might wanna try it sometime as well. Makes the sex that follows so much hotter."

Harry thought that he knew all too well what Ron was talking about.

############################################################################

Elena was welcomed with open arms into the house of Karina and Nikolaj Swoboda. Nikolaj and his brother Andrej were distant cousins that she herself had never met before, but they were all united by the same desires, and took to each other almost immediately.

Nikolaj and Andrej, both lean, dark-haired men, dressed in impeccably elegant robes, were certainly not of the most friendly sort of people to meet, but they were both good companions, treating Elena as though she was an old friend, and the shapely dirty-blond Karina showed her around the old building that would for the time being be Elena's home as well.

Gathered around the table and plotting the next steps, they all were delighted at the sight of the object which Elena had after a long search finally found and brought along with her from Britain and reverently held it in their hands one after another.

Something was going right for once.

############################################################################

It was late when Harry finally returned to Grimmauld Place, and Ginny was already sleeping. He rushed downstairs into the basement, barely acknowledging Voldemort at all as he scanned the desk where he had last seen his ring.

"Hey," he greeted distractedly as he searched under scattered paper and parchment, without success. "I forgot my wedding ring, where is it? Sorry I couldn't come back, by the way, Ginny was already home."

Voldemort didn't answer, merely looked at him expressionlessly.

"I asked, where is my ring?"

The Lord shrugged. "Haven't seen it, didn't you put it back on?"

"No, I just told you I forgot it here," Harry said irritatedly. "Stop fooling around, you must have seen it. You put it right there on the table last night."

"Maybe the helpful pixies put it away? I've been suspecting for a while now that we have some of those running around here. They must have confused it with rubbish and gotten rid of it."

"You have it," accused Harry, "give it back to me."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

Harry gazed at Voldemort's fingers, thinking that perhaps he had put it on himself, but that was not the case. "If you really don't, then surely you won't have a problem letting me look through your pockets," he said.

"Feel free."

After a close inspection, Harry had to come to the conclusion that the Lord didn't have the ring on himself at any rate. "Just give it back, you damn bastard!"

"If I don't have it?"

"Screw you," Harry grumbled. This was no use, obviously Voldemort wasn't going to be any help. He continued searching, systematically going through the room, looking on the floor, under the furniture, pulling out any drawers and emptying the contents to look them through, not caring about the mess he was making. It was Voldemort's own fault if he had to clean that all up later. Meanwhile, the Lord lounged on the sofa and watched Harry's fruitless efforts with mild interest.

Eventually he had thoroughly searched every corner of the room, even roughly pushed Voldemort off the sofa to look inside the cracks and under the pillows, then ripped them open and took them apart. Nothing. Seething, he went on to the hallway. When he had been through the entire accommodation, certain that there was no place that he could possibly have left out, he stalked furiously back to Voldemort and stood in front of him, glaring daggers, but tired and out of ideas what to do.

"Seriously, this is fucking ridiculous."

"I quite agree."

"Give me that ring, for Merin's sake! Ginny's going to have my head, how do you expect me to explain that to her?"

"Not my problem. I cannot give you something I don't have. You've seen for yourself that I don't, have you not?"

Harry snapped. With an almost bestial growl, he pounced on Voldemort, knocking him back onto the floor again, and began punching him as hard as he could. Taken by surprise, the Lord could not suppress a high-pitched shriek. As soon as he got over the initial shock he tried to deflect the blows and clawed at whatever piece of Harry he could get his hands on, although he hardly succeeded at all. The healthy young man on top of him was stronger, and had the force of blind rage on his side.

"Calm down, Potter, you little freak!" he screamed at Harry, who barely even heard him, much too busy shaking him and repeatedly bashing his head onto the floor. Voldemort managed to grab a handful of Harry's hair and pulled. He could slide his other arm around Harry and clung to the other man, pressing his own body so close against the other's that Harry had no room left to hit him very hard anymore.

"Get over it," he hissed into Harry's ear while resisting the Auror's efforts to break his hold, "Do I look like I care what petty troubles you'll get into with your sweetheart?" He bit into the ear. "Why don't you just tell her the truth, Harry? Tell her that ring never meant a thing, tell her you've always belonged to me. Or even better yet, let me do it. You can trust me to make the point perfectly clear."

Harry pushed him back down and pressed their mouths together, forcing his tongue inside Voldemort's mouth when the Lord gasped as the back of his head hit the floor again and Harry's weighed crashed onto him. Harry kissed him roughly, intensionally bruising the pale lips and making them split. Voldemort went limp under him, allowing Harry to do as he willed.

"I'd say that in your current situation, you belong to me much more than I to you," said Harry when he stopped the kiss to breathe. There was a wicked, twisted smile on his usually friendly face that Voldemort suspected he was the only one who had ever gotten to see. "You're just my dead little fucktoy now, my Lord."

Not giving Voldemort time for a comeback, he smashed his lips back onto the other's. Deeply offended and trying to protect his dignity, the Lord bit his tongue and tried to escape his hold. Harry hit him again.

"Leave," Voldemort bit out, "You've let your anger out on me, unjustified if I may say so, and now it is enough. Get yourself out of my sight."

"But I don't feel like getting out of your sight," Harry hissed back, "I feel like fucking you now, and since you're nothing but my personal whore you will let me."

Like an electric shock, he felt a jolt of pain coursing through Voldemort's hands into his body, and had no choice but to let go. He stood up and deceivingly walked away, just to return a few moments later with a few large nails and a hammer in his pocket.

Voldemort who had in the meantime sat up and was feeling his wounds looked at him quizzically. "I thought I had told you to leave."

"So..." was all Harry said. Quicker than the other wizard could react he ripped him up onto his feet and dragged him over to the desk. Staggering, Voldemort had to follow in order not to stumble and fall. Harry pushed him face-first onto the table, immediately standing behind him to hold him down with his weight. The Lord struggled with all his might, cursing and hissing furiously and lashing out at Harry, but Harry resolutely subdued him, forced one of his hands down on the table while he pushed a partially rusty nail through it and into the wood as far as it went. He was surprised at how easily the nail pierced the white flesh while he paid no notice to Voldemort's protests and the free hand that was pinching and scratching his arms, causing angry red marks all over the skin. Then he did the same to the other hand while Voldemort continued his pointless struggle.

When the Dark Lord's hands were firmly fixed on the table, he stood back and laughed. Voldemort turned his head towards him as far as possible, looking positively dangerous, the slit pupils in his cold red eyes thinning to an extreme as he realized he where this was going, that he was trapped and not going to get away with his dignity undamaged. "Let me go," he demanded even now.

Harry shook his head, that damn smile on his face again, and petted Voldemort's haggard cheek, immune to the look in his eyes, traced the bone that was sticking out. "My lovely little doll doesn't want to play... aww... but play we will."

He was aware that he was going too far. He didn't like the side of him that he was showing himself, that incalculable, almost insanely cruel side that only this most infuriating of infuriating bastards could bring out in him.

This awareness, however, did nothing to stop him. "I'm clearly granting you too much freedom. You don't understand how fortunate you are," he said sweetly, "I didn't have to save you. I don't have to treat you well. You would do right to see it as a privilege that I do. I could as well just let you rot in here."

"And you expect me to be grateful, do you?" spat Voldemort defiantly, "Oh, how merciful you are... how much better than me... I wouldn't have thought so, but your fame and all-around popularity really do seem to have gotten to your head, expecting me of all people to worship you now... if any of your precious friends could see you now, see you as I do, do you believe that they would still adore you so much?"

"They don't see me now, do they?" Harry replied casually, "And if you really wanted me to leave you alone, all you'd have to the is tell me where my fucking ring is."

"Forget about it, my dearest."

"Right then," Harry told him, "Your choice." He pushed Voldemort's robes up, and possessively rubbed his hands over the thin body, not at all gently, and almost expecting one of the bones to crack under his hard touch. The Lord's body reminded him more of that of a small bird than that of a grown man, fragile as it was. He never got over the fear, or hope, that he would break something without meaning to. His unwelcome ministrations were simply ignored, Voldemort had taken to pretending he didn't even notice Harry was there.

"By the way, do you have any idea how... cute... you look when you're all helpless and hating me?"

"Do you hate me, Harry?" Voldemort asked snidely without looking at him.

The question made Harry feel uncomfortable, because he didn't know the answer. Sometimes, at this moment, it felt as if he did, but... it was no longer the pure, white hatred that it once had been, no, instead there were dark traces of affection tainting it.

Resolving not to spare Voldemort's words another unnecessary thought, he pulled both of their pants down and began to stroke his own half-erect cock while still inappropriately touching the Dark Lord, fueled by the exciting awareness of absolute control over this eternally fascinating being.

This creature was his alone, ever since the resurrection had practically been his creation. He felt terrible for it, but he assured himself that he had every right in the world to enforce his will on it. Although their relationship, if it could be called that, had already existed for so long, it still felt somewhat unreal. Sometimes Harry thought about the enemy in his home, and wondered if it was not all just a dream. And even when he stood before the Dark Lord, saw him, looked into his eyes for as long as he needed to, heard the familiar, cold voice speak to him, to him alone, and felt every small detail of the icy skin beneath his fingertips, he still felt as if this simply could not be real, as if it could all just disappear at any minute, and he would wake up and find that none of this had ever happened.

Every once in a while it occurred that for a split second he was on the edge of true comprehension, very nearly grasping the enormity of their shared reality. Judging from these tiny glimpses, he imagined that this was all that his mind was able to take, that it must close itself to the full extent of the situation because likely it would not be able to take it, would figuratively explode.

He slipped a finger inside Voldemort's asshole, feeling the muscles clench around it in protest. He flexed the finger, applying pressure against the other man's inner walls, and added another one. "You cannot get away, My Lord," he said sweetly, "Stop trying, you're only making it harder for yourself if you don't."

Voldemort reared up again, rebelled against Harry's intruding touch, despite knowing beforehand that it would be in vain. He was used to the fact that Harry tended to address him as 'My Lord' whenever he wanted to ridicule him, to rub his ignominious defeat into his face once again, but to be truthful he partially liked that, although he had never admitted that to Harry, because was also a reminder of his former glory. And that was something no one would ever take from him, his very own dark chapter in history that the world was not going to forget about any time soon.

Harry removed his fingers and without a moment's pause replaced it with his cock. Heedlessly he moved in and out of Voldemort, not trying for any rhythm or to make the intercourse feel particularly pleasurable for either of them. Right now, it was all about the act of penetrating his ingrate dead doll without showing him any undeserved respect.

"You like this, My Lord?" he jeered.

"If I said yes, would that make you stop and piss off?"

"Eh, no."

"You are greatly enjoying yourself, though, are you not? Do you ever feel this way with her?" Voldemort forced himself to speak with an air of dark amusement. "No, Harry, only ever with me. Only ever with me."

"Ginny's worth a hundred of your kind, you don't even feel human. Nothing but an animated corpse, you're more worthless than ever." Mechanically, Harry continued his thrusts, until finally, stimulated by the physical motions and the all-encompassing feeling of power, he came and spilled his seed into the Lord. "See? This is all you're good for anymore, my helpless, pathetic little bitch."

"Shown me good, have you now? Oh Harry, Harry, Harry... all you just did is prove how much I am worth to you... more than anyone else, much more than flawless darling Ginny. Admit it, she's so perfect and simply oh-so-right for you that it bores you to death. She cannot hold your attention like I can, as much as you try you can never desire her like you do me. You can hurt me now, indeed. I will give you that on the outside you have attained a certain amount of power over me. Not on the inside, however. You're still the same immature boy that will never admit even to himself that he's not who he is supposed to be. My hopes are low that you will ever realize the full extent of how drawn you are to me, Harry, how pitifully dependent on my approval. And if it is not my approval that you seek, then at least it is my disagreement, so you can feel better about yourself if you defy that. As a matter of fact, one could say that, unofficially of course, you are like a misguided Death Eater in denial."

The Auror stepped back, pulled his trousers back up and looked around the chaos around him again. The rage inside him had numbed, all that he felt now was apathy and an overwhelming desire to be left alone.

"Have a nice day. And you can see for yourself how you get free, that's not my problem." With these words, Harry left.

Still nailed to the table in a position he was all too glad no one else could see him in, the Lord glared at the door even after it had fallen shut behind Harry.

He still hadn't gotten his books.

###########################################################################

"Are you seeing another woman, Harry?" Ginny asked in a choked whisper, sounding afraid of the answer. "Tell me the truth!"

"No. No, I'm not," Harry told her in the most trust-inspiring fashion he could muster. "Look at me, Ginny, I'm not lying."

"Then what is it? What is wrong with you? And don't you dare say it's nothing, it's not just that you somehow managed to lose the ring that's supposed to be the sign of our love, if it was only this one thing I wouldn't get so worked up about it, but it's everything! Whatever you say, I know that you're keeping secrets, you won't share with me what is going on with you. Who are you, Harry? I'm not sure I even know you. You are always so far away." Tears were forming in her eyes.

"Hey... don't cry, honey..." Harry wrapped his arms around her and looked into her soft brown eyes, wiped away a tear clinging to the lashes. "I'm right here with you now. I'll never leave you, we were made for each other. Who else could possibly take your place in my heart?"

Ginny returned his hug. "I know, I know... I just wish you could show me that as much as I need you to. I'm not saying you mean to, but you keep on hurting me, and I can't shake off the feeling that my love for you is greater than yours for me. Merlin knows I tried, I have told myself so many times that perhaps your way to show love is just different from mine, but it still hurts."

Suddenly Harry noticed Lily standing in the doorway. He let go of Ginny and indicated to her to turn around.

"I hurt my knee," Lily said shyly.

Ginny wiped her eyes dry. "Show it to me, sweetie. I'm sure I can heal it at once."

############################################################################

It took Voldemort a long time to get his hands off the table. He was exhausted and the nails were driven all the way into the wood, but he shoved the pain to the back of his mind and concentrated on moving one of them out, one millimeter at a time. Then, although any movement of the hand that he had gotten free hurt even worse, he could use it to loosen the second nail.

When he was done, he dropped onto what was left of the couch, aching all over. He stayed lying there, first inspecting the bloody holes in his hands and then hugging his torso with his bony arms, and looked at the ceiling, waiting for the world to stop spinning madly around him and making his eyes hurt and his stomach turn. Cleaning up the complete mess that Harry had made of the room was something he didn't even want to think about yet.

He was angry at Harry, yes, beyond angry. He hated nothing more than feeling so powerless, not being treated with the appropriate amount of respect and unable to do anything about it. And Harry had done precisely that, something that he would have to pay for.

Still... he did have to admit quietly to himself that he found the younger man exceptionally attractive when he was like this. Years ago the teenager's unyielding ways had captured his interest, and held it for all this time. It was what made him different from all of those pitiful excuses for human beings that he had always surrounded himself with, those fawning cowards that never failed to delude themselves that they were not entirely expendable. Not a single one of them could hold a candle to his Harry.

People had rarely ever managed to surprise him, normally he had them all figured out right from the start, yet despite the long time that their lives had been so closely intertwined, the Boy-Who-Lived was unpredictable, still something of a familiar and at the same time obscure mystery to him. Harry was the only person he had ever known that he considered worthy of him, after all.

His fucktoy, he had dared to call him... his whore... oh yes, sooner or later there would be hell to pay. He did not forgive, and he did not forget.

#################################################################################

A/N: *ducks* This one turned out a bit weird, and I know Harry was being an asshole son-of-a-bitch, but it just had to be done.

Anyway, writing Ginny feels like dissecting some body that's been rotting in the heat for too long. You have to work past all those maggots and worms, and the smell just makes you want to puke. Yeah, that sounds like Ginny.


	5. Chapter 5

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 5

Jonas ran, ran like he had never run before through the darkness of the park. He had had no idea that he could possibly overstep his exhaustion limits the way he was doing now. The adrenaline levels in his blood peaked and sharpened his mind, despite of how randomly jumbled images and thoughts came up, one seamlessly replacing another.

He could still taste tonight's dinner, a ghost on his tongue. He had complained to his mother for cooking whole-wheat pasta instead of the normal kind, but now he would give everything to have another taste of it. His parents had been right, they only cared for him after all, and now he might never see them again. He should have listened to them, shouldn't have sneaked out after they had gone to bed. A bit of underage drinking and maintaining his bad-boy image wasn't worth his death, or whatever it was that those... people? monsters?... wanted from him.

They did want something from him, that much was for sure, although in fact they would almost have lost interest in him. One of the men, the one with shorter hair and only a few small lines on his face, had said that he was not what they were looking for, that he was too young to use. That they should just get rid of him and find another one, but the other man and the woman had both agreed that he would do just fine.

He had left the path, ran on over wet grass into a group of maples and paused, holding his ribs where he had a stitch and frantically trying to work out whether any of those trees were thick enough to hide behind, but in the distance he could see them coming behind him. They had seen him, they were running into his direction, the tips of the sticks each of them was holding glowing brightly in the dark. They moved in a strange way, not stumbling onwards like himself, but almost floating like smoke in the wind.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't go on, every step was too painful... he was not going to make it, all he wanted to do anymore was to fall to the ground and stay there. Mother... Mama, I'm sorry, he thought, I'm so sorry for leaving you... when was the last time that he had spared a second thought to her feelings? If anything happened to him, if he disappeared, he knew that it was sure to break her, and he found new strength to go on. He suppressed the panic and continued to run. He didn't think about whether or not he even had a chance.

He reached a small playground, climbed over the low wire-mesh fence instead of using the gate on the other side, and hid inside a wooden playhouse. He crawled to a corner in the back, pressed himself into the corner as if hoping it would swallow him, hid his face behind his hands and prayed to every deity he didn't even believe in that they wouldn't find him.

He was just going to stay still, stay here for as long as he had to, until it was all over and someone would save him...

"Tut, tut... hiding like a little child..." he heard a terrible voice that he had wished never to hear again say, "Didn't think we would find you in here?"

Immobilized, Jonas glimpsed through the gaps between his fingers at the speaker, the tall woman in black robes with an arrogant expression on her aging aristocratic features. He believed that one of the men had called her Antonia when they had first caught him, but he couldn't be quite certain, having been too distracted by fear to care. The bun in her chestnut brown, slightly greying hair had loosened during the chase. Once more, she pointed that awful stick at him, and from then on everything was pain.

##########################################################################

Ginny was going to find out what was going on with her Harry. She didn't know what to believe, he had told her that she was his only one, but, as incredible as the thought was, what if that was just a lie? She had always thought that Harry could only be the perfect man, but what if his promises were empty?

Many nights, she had woken up to find Harry gone. In the beginning, she had walked through the house in hopes to find him, and a few times he actually did turn up, all of a sudden standing in front of her, but these times were rare. The normality was that he was simply gone.

Things were too far from how they should be. Ginny had to act, had to know what was going on. And she already had an idea how she was going to do that.

###########################################################################

Lord Voldemort observed his work. He was not done, but at least a part of his living space was in order again, his workspace and the coffee corner, the things that mattered the most.

By all means he should have made Harry do that, after all this was entirely this brat's fault, but Harry had not returned yet and making him do it would likely turn out to be a lot harder than doing it himself. And done it had to be.

He made himself another cup of coffee and looked through the heap of DVDs that Harry had brought him years ago. Although he did find the theory of how these small things could hold information without it being magic quite interesting, the fact that he had to resort to such uncivilized measures to relieve his boredom was outrageously disgusting.

Nevertheless, watching a number of people die painful deaths while doing his best to ignore the knowledge that they were merely acting was better than nothing at all.

############################################################################

Ron was happy that he had managed to evade having to deal with more paperwork. He had plastered the walls of his cubicle with pictures of Hermione, which made them a lot nicer, but they were still pressing down on him when he was stuck in there every day.

The only downside was that on his patrol through Knockturn Alley he was paired with Lavender Brown, who had to his and Harry's surprise also made it through Auror training. Sure, they had all grown up, and neither him nor Lavender were much like the hormonal teens they had once been, but they were still not entirely comfortable around each other. While they didn't exactly go out of their ways to avoid one another, they were both far from seeking any close contact these days.

So they walked side-by-side down the alley in silence, paying attention to their surroundings, but not really expecting any trouble. Ron did his best not to stare at the scars on Lavender's face too often, but couldn't resist stealing a quick glance every now and then. Briefly, he even wondered how the rest of the scars that were hidden underneath her robes might look like. Lavender was still beautiful, even with her disfigurement. The softness on her face had gone, replaced by grave determination. The carefree girl he used to know had turned into a fighter.

The street was almost deserted. People didn't want to be seen in such a shady place these days, and if they really had to come here, they made sure to carry out whatever business had brought them here without delay.

"Why don't we take a break and go for a drink?" he asked Lavender, observing an old witch selling cat's paws, "Not like anything interesting is happening here."

"We're supposed to make sure it stays that way, Ron, not wander off and have a good time," Lavender snapped.

"Oh great, now you're sounding like my wife."

Lavender had nothing to say to that.

#############################################################################

Harry was lying in bed with his eyes closed, trying and failing to sleep. The bag with the books that Harry had gotten for Voldemort and hid in the back of his closet didn't leave his mind. He would have to go back to him, ignoring him and letting him stew in his anger would only make it worse.

He felt guilty, towards both the Lord and Ginny. He was playing both of them, although what he was doing to Ginny was a lot worse. She deserved so much better... so much that he was simply not able to give her. Able to fake for her, yes, but she was starting to see through that, and he didn't know how long he would be able to keep this up.

Perhaps a clean break-up with Ginny would even be better for her than this life of constant deception, then at least she would be able to start over and find someone who truly deserved her, who treated her right... but he was not going to give Voldemort that satisfaction, oh no, he was not.

In a way, he blamed the Dark Lord for how he himself was neglecting all the people who actually cared about him in favor of his cold-hearted lover. Blamed him for being there, for being so in control of Harry's mind and emotions, for haunting his thoughts day and night. Of course, he rationally knew that this was all his own responsibility, his and no one else's, but to completely accept that would be too hard. Even with the awareness of what it was that he was doing, projecting the anger he felt for himself onto someone else was just so much easier.

He could push having to talk to him off a little bit more, all he had to do find something else to occupy him, if only for a while.

#############################################################################

Relieved that she had made it through another day, Lavender shut the door of her London apartment behind her, leaned against it and closed her eyes. After standing there for a few minutes, she put her shoes off, chucked them into a corner and went to get herself a martini from the fridge. Briefly, she entertained the thought of disguising her hideous scars, go out and make a move on the best-looking guy she came across, but she was feeling too down again to bother. At the moment she preferred her own company.

Uninterestedly, she flipped through the latest edition of Witch Weekly while slowly sipping on her martini. The things that some people cared about... which color hats went best for which type of witch... a price for the reader that sent in the best recipe for turtle-pie... the Most Charming Smile Award... Oliver Wood's most recent affair... an interview with a mother whose daughter had been born a squib... well, she supposed that the latter was indeed relevant, only not to her.

She put the magazine down, and although it was late and there wouldn't be many people still working at the Ministry at this time, she decided to go to there and see if there wasn't any work for her to do.

#############################################################################

When Harry arrived at the Auror Department he was surprised to find the lights still on.

"Hello, anyone there?" he called. Perhaps somebody had simply forgot to turn them off.

"Hey, Harry," he heard a voice, and saw Lavender Brown's head poking out from behind the walls of her cubicle at the back of the room. His first thought was that she looked as tired as he felt.

"Oh, it's you," he said, "what are you doing here? It's the middle of the night."

"I could ask you the same," said Lavender with a smile, "I guess I just had nothing better to do. I often stay here all night. Pretty sad, if you think about it."

"Yeah, same goes for me, I didn't feel like hanging out at home, so I went to work," Harry told her. "Think I'll just go through some reports again or so, that's really nearly all I've had to do lately. Not that I'm complaining, but if the worst criminals running free around here are a couple of idiots smuggling flying carpets into the country, we end up having nothing worthwhile to do."

Lavender laughed. "I know, I know. Honestly, though, it feels to me like this is only the quiet before a storm... then again, my intuition might just be totally off."

"Well, anyway, I'm not going to disturb you," said Harry, "I'll be all quiet and do my stuff, okay?"

"You're not disturbing me, not at all," Lavender replied, "as a matter of fact, if you feel like talking or anything, that's really no problem, I told you I just don't know what to do with myself."

###############################################################################

When Harry arrived at home early in the morning, he found Ginny sitting on the kitchen table again with a steaming cup of tea in front of her.

"Where have you been this time?" she asked. Last night she had pretended to be asleep until Harry got up, thrown his invisibility cloak over herself and tried to follow her husband when he left, to see where he was going, but when he apparated outside the house she had lost him.

"At work."

"The whole night long?" Ginny's tone was skeptical.

"I couldn't sleep, so I figured I could at least do something useful," Harry explained, and when the disbelieving look on her face didn't disappear, he added, "Ask Lavender if you don't believe me. She was there as well."

"Lavender?" Ginny asked, all of a sudden in a rage, "And, pray tell, what were you and Lavender doing all night?"

Harry understood, and quickly said, "No, no, you're getting it all wrong. It's not like that at all, Ginny. We really just met there by coincidence, we hardly even talked. Really, go ahead and ask her, please."

"I will," Ginny growled, "You bet I will."

#################################################################################

Two days later, Lord Voldemort was becoming rather impatient. Harry had better not take to ignoring him again. If he did...

Not that his dear Harry wasn't in enough trouble already.

He looked around when he heard the sound of the door opening. Finally. He looked at Harry expectantly and waited for him to say something.

After an awkward pause of Harry standing in the door and looking nervous, the younger man said, "I've brought some books for you," and dropped a bag near the door.

"Took you long enough. And what else do you want?"

"Er - Listen, I... I'm not going to apologize for anything, if that's what you're expecting." Harry firmly clenched his jaw.

"Why would I?" Voldemort smiled, a conniving, malicious smile. "I understood. You have your precious and beloved wife, and I am left with no choice but to accept that I am nothing to you, at least within the limits of your mind. I can only expect you to do what you can endure to arrange with your conscience. As the Chosen One I imagine that even keeping me as your, as you so kindly put it, fucktoy, is close to more than you can handle."

"Good thing that you see it my way."

"I know you too well, Harry," the Lord said equivocally.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind, you will see in due time," In a casual, yet at strangely predatory fashion, Voldemort walked over and handed Harry a piece of paper, "That is a new list of things you have to get me."

Harry took a short look at the paper, folded it, nodded and put it into his pocket. His posture was tense, he did not at all trust the unforeseen peace.

"Do you not want to have a seat, Harry?"

"I... - sure, thanks." Harry gingerly sat down on the couch, half-expecting it to explode under him.

"A drink?"

"Depends, is it poisoned?"

"It would be, if only I had access to any sort of poison..." the Lord poured a glass of Single Malt for each of them, and sat down very close to Harry. He put an arm around the uncomfortable man and took the first sip from his glass while never once looking away from Harry's eyes or even blinking.

"Are you trying to creep me out?" Harry asked.

"Why, am I creeping you out?"

This agreeableness is not normal for him, Harry thought, this isn't over yet. He had been anticipating a vicious act of revenge of any kind, and now there was simply... nothing. That couldn't possibly be, right? But he said, "No, it's fine."

The Lord did only a half-hearted job of hiding his smile. His Harry was not unintelligent.

"I know you have assumed me to be angry with you about your behavior toward myself that you displayed on your last visit," he said silkily, "and I can assure you that I am. However... I will admit that I need you, Harry. I would much prefer if you were to treat me with more respect than you do, but in any case I am not prepared to live the rest of my days here with not even the disputable pleasure of your company."

Harry was still suspicious, but he relaxed a little. "You won't have to. I promise."

"Good to know." This was all the Lord needed, for now. He had his Harry right where he wanted him.

His Harry, indeed.

##################################################################################

A/N: I know this chapter is rather short, but at least the next one will be up really soon. Again, I just had to stop where I did. All that stuff about Lavender might seem a bit pointless right now, but she'll have a minor role in the story, so... this did have a point.

Free butterbeer to all you awesome readers!


	6. Chapter 6

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 6

Ginny was feeling more hurt by Harry than she had ever been until now. Before, she had only suspected that there was something he was hiding from her, and now she knew.

She had, in fact, spoken to Lavender and asked her to tell her absolutely everything she knew about what Harry had been doing. She had supposed that Lavender might not have told her the entire truth, but the other woman had seemed believable enough, for the time being, and even if she would never say so out loud... with a face like hers, what could her chances at stealing Ginny's Harry away possibly be?

But Ginny had not yet been satisfied. Once more, she had followed Harry in the night, invisible. He had taken a bag out of his cupboard and gone straightly down the stairs, down into the basement. Supposing that he was simply taking something downstairs and would be returning in a minute, Ginny had waited for him in the hall. When he had not come back after a good half an hour, she had followed him down herself.

She didn't know what to expect, she expected everything and nothing. And yet, what she found surprised her more than she would have thought anything else could. No Harry.

He could not possibly have gone back upstairs, she knew that with absolute certainty as she had not once let the door out of her sight. After looking around for him in the entire cellar, she sat down on top of a box, still hidden underneath the cloak, and waited, until at some point a door in the wall appeared that had never been there before, and Harry came out, seemingly confused and shaking his head about something.

Much to Ginny's luck, the first thing that Harry did when he went back upstairs was to fetch himself a glass of water from the kitchen, so she was able to sneak back upstairs, lie back into bed and pretend to be asleep when he joined her a few short minutes later.

She was not going to say anything, she was not going to confront him with what she had witnessed. She was not going to present him with a chance to find some sort of unbelievable excuse again.

No, she simply resolved that she was most definitely going to follow him again, and next time, she was going to make sure to slip inside that door right after him.

###################################################################################

Ron cleared a space on Harry's desk and sat down. He stared at his best friend with an unreadable expression on his face for a while, apparently not knowing how to begin, before he said, "I... heard what happened before, what Ginny said to Lavender, you know?" When Harry didn't answer, he continued, "Honestly, Harry, I know that this is really uncomfortable for you because I'm Ginny's brother and all, but you know that you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"Ron..." Harry said, "you know there's nothing going on between Lavender and me, I mean..."

"I know that," interrupted Ron, "but I also can't see that Ginny would get nervous about anything like that if there was not some other problem at all... I understand if you don't want to tell me everything, maybe I had really better keep out of it, but if there's anything you want to tell me... well, I can't promise you I won't be taking a stand for my little sister at all, but I know you'd never intentionally hurt her, so I don't think I'll be blaming you..."

Harry sighed. He just wanted this conversation to end. "I told you, there are some minor problems there, but that's really hard to explain... Anyway, I think Ginny's feeling much better about that now, we've been happily married for so long and we can deal with a couple of issues every once in a while, and if anything changes, of course you'd be the first to know, Ron."

Ron nodded, contemplating that, and made to go back to his own workplace. "That's really all I wanted to hear."

###################################################################################

They all were jubilant from the success of the ritual that they had performed earlier and that, despite being of a rather experimental nature, had worked precisely as intended. The sacrifice they had found had done more than well, and even proven to be a great source of general amusement, pathetically sobbing and pleading for them to have mercy... as if.

Friedrich von Rabenstein lifted his wife Antonia up by the hips and swung her around, dirtying her robes with the blood on his hands. She shrieked gleefully before she demanded he let her down.

After all, they still had a long way to go before they could afford to even think about celebrating victory.

Although they had already beforehand ensured the support of a small number of people, more were needed in order to make a great change, and hardly anyone of the old crowd was even still alive.

They were optimistic about that, though. If they had been able to do this, then the rest was as good as children's play.

###################################################################################

Today it was Harry's turn to patrol Knockturn Alley, to his dismay together with Dawlish. He didn't like the other Auror, to be honest he didn't even think that Dawlish still had any right to be called an Auror, having first supported Fudge in his crusade against Harry and Dumbledore, and then later even aided Voldemort's regime. Seeing as he had never actually been a Death Eater, however, and merely followed the laws that had applied at the time, Dawlish had not even been moved to another department.

Harry didn't bother to make his resentment of Dawlish a secret, and while Dawlish did not openly admit to dislike the Chosen One, it was crystal clear to Harry that this was the case.

"Having a rough time, Potter?" Dawlish asked, sounding pleased, "You look like shit, you know."

"Thank you, that's just the look I was going for," retorted Harry, "Shitty is the latest trend, fresh from Paris. I think I can say that I'm pulling it off very well."

Dawlish snorted. "It's about your wife, isn't it? Don't even try to deny it, she came rushing into the office the day before last and screeched at Brown about what the hell you had been doing with her all night. Not so perfect after all, are we, Potter?"

"If you had actually bothered to listen, then you might have heard Lavender tell her that we had been working. Doing our job, you know, unlike some other people."

"U-hu, right. Working, so that's what you call it these days."

Harry just rolled his eyes.

Down the street, a small group of people that was standing huddled together and whispering amongst each other split as soon as they took notice of the two Aurors approaching.

Harry had no way of knowing what that was about, but their behavior seemed clearly suspicious to him, so he raced into their direction, leaving Dawlish behind, and persecuted one of them that was hurrying into a side street. He caught up with the hooded figure, gripped their arm and spun them around. He knew that woman...

"Millicent Bulstrode, isn't it?" he asked.

She hesitated, perhaps thinking about denying her identity, but then nodded. "What do you want, Potter?"

"Well, what are you running from?" he asked.

"I'm not running, I'm in a hurry to get home," she sneered, "That's not a crime now, is it?"

"You and your friends there just happened to remember that you all have to get home really quick at the same time, right? And coincidentally, that was precisely when you saw us coming."

"Looks like it," said Millicent, shrugging, "If that is all... I would really like to go now."

They both knew that he would have to let her go, seeing as he had absolutely no concrete evidence against her and talking to people on the street was indeed far from illegal. All Harry had was his instinct, and that he knew he could trust.

"Who were those people, and what were you talking about?"

"I really don't see how that is any of your business," his former classmate snapped, "And we were talking about the weather, happy there, Saint Potter?"

Harry wasn't happy with her answer, but all else he could do about it was to bid her farewell and go back to Dawlish who was still standing in exactly the same spot where Harry had left him.

Saint Potter... Harry smiled to himself. No, by god, he was not a saint.

###################################################################################

"Hey Harry, you're right on time," Ginny called the moment Harry entered the house, "Come sit down, will you? Dinner's practically ready, I've made macaroni casserole... Lily, you set the table, please... here, take these dishes..."

Harry wouldn't have expected Ginny to get over her distrust so easily, but that appeared to be exactly what had happened. He wondered what Lavender could possibly have told her, because since the two women had talked, Ginny had not asked him a single awkward question.

Lately, people seemed to be out to defy his expectations. First Voldemort not showing any signs of reproachfulness, at the very least outwardly acting friendly even though he had a right to be angry, and now Ginny giving up on pumping him for information.

Maybe the world had just gone mad, or alternatively, his understanding of people had gone down the drain.

Whichever it was, he had to enjoy it while it lasted.

"How was you day, gorgeous?" he asked, sitting down.

Ginny piled a heap of macaroni onto Lily's plate. "It was really nice, wasn't it, Lily?" The girl nodded enthusiastically, and Ginny continued, "We went to Diagon Alley with my father."

"Yes, I remember, you told me you were planning that," said Harry.

"We went to Uncle George's shop, too!" Lily piped in, "And Teddy was there with us."

"That's great," said Harry, and took a bite from his dinner, "This tastes amazing, Ginny."

"When can Teddy come visit us again?" asked Lily, "He hasn't been here at all since the holidays."

"Well, your brothers are both at school, and Teddy's old enough to have many other things to do..." Harry answered, "But if you want it so much, I'll invite him again soon, okay?"

"Yes, he said he would really like to come by again," said Ginny now.

The familiar feeling of guilt surfaced again inside Harry. Not that he didn't want to see Teddy at all, he really did care about the boy a lot, but he just could not but see this as one of the many things making his life harder by keeping him away from taking care of Voldemort.

He mentally scolded himself for thinking like this. He should be grateful for the life he had, and the wonderful people in it, not push everyone away so he could spent more time with a mass murderer.

Harry reached a hand across the table and put it on top of Ginny's, gently squeezing it. She looked at him, her beautiful brown eyes wide open and suddenly filled with hope. For a moment, Harry noticed how breathtaking she looked. She seemed to have not even have gotten around to put makeup on at all, but he thought that she looked better without any on, anyway. Her long red hair was lightly framing her face and falling onto her white dress with olive green flower pattern. Harry thought that the strands of her hair seemed to be fading into the pattern somehow.

Dazedly, he smiled at her, and Ginny smiled back.

##################################################################################

Holding her breath, Ginny had stood close to the strange door and held it just the smallest bit ajar after Harry had passed and, relieved that he had not noticed, followed him into a dark hallway. He opened the door at the end, stood there and said to someone inside, "Good evening."

As fast as she could accomplish it quietly, Ginny slipped past him into the room.

She had to hold her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp at the sight in front of her, took a step backwards and pressed herself to the wall. She could not believe her eyes. This could just not be true...

You-Know-Who was dead! Dead, gone, all Horcruxes destroyed, never coming back... and still, right there he was, leaning casually against the edge of a small cupboard that Ginny remembered had once stood in James' room.

She felt faint, had to focus hard on standing upright. Somehow, she managed to step out of the way when Harry shut the door and walked past her, almost close enough to touch, and toward HIM, as if this all was nothing but a normal every-day occurrence... one thing was for sure, Harry was not in the slightest bit shocked to see HIM.

Actually, more like... she hardly dared to think it, but... happy, even. You-Know-Who simply greeted Harry back, they were talking in a friendly manner... Ginny had trouble making out the words through her haze of shock, but it was obvious even in her state that they were both entirely used to each other... close, really.

Close also perfectly described the way that You-Know-Who pressed himself against her husband next, much to Ginny's absolute horror, and whispered something into his ear.

She had been nearly scared out of her mind by the thought that it might have been Lavender, but now she found herself wishing that it really had been her...

Anyone would have been better than HIM. Of all people... it just had to be HIM.

And her Harry, her husband, the father of her three children... a traitor. A Death Eater, leaving her alone in the night to be with his Lord...

She thought that she must be stuck in a nightmare.

Please, Merlin, let me wake up... This is not real, this cannot be real...

###################################################################################

"I haven't had the time to get all that stuff on the list you gave me yet," Harry said apologetically, "I'll see if I can get it tomorrow, or the day after, okay?"

"Sure, I have more than enough time to wait. I'm glad you could disentangle yourself to come see me again so soon," Voldemort said, apparently still as agreeable as the other day.

Imperceptibly, the Lord's eyes flickered over to the seemingly empty space near the door where Ginny was standing, immobilized by shock and watching the scene taking place before her eyes in absolute horror.

Voldemort leaned very close to Harry and whispered, "I'll give you a reason to come back to me so soon again, my beautiful Harry. Just relax and let me, okay? I will need a little bit of your trust for this one."

And then, taking out a long piece of dark silk from somewhere, he blindfolded Harry while making sure to seductively rub his body against the younger man's. Harry allowed him to do as he willed, even as Voldemort guided him to lie down and tied his hands and feet together. He had long ago had no choice but to come to terms with the fact that if he let him, Voldemort could do, and more often than not actually did, something more than unpleasant to him, but as long as he was as indispensable to the Dark Lord as he was, he knew that he was never in any serious danger.

He couldn't see a thing, but felt the older man stand up. "Wait a minute, will you?" Voldemort said, "I will just get something from the other room."

"What is it that you're getting?" asked Harry suspiciously.

"It's a surprise. Don't worry, I can promise that you will find it is very much to your taste."

Deliberately, he sauntered over to the door, and then in a sudden, fluent motion brought a marble paperweight that he was gripping in his right hand down on Ginny's head before she had a chance to react. As she went limp and fell, he attempted to catch her, but could merely slow her hitting the floor with a thud.

"What was that noise?" asked Harry obliviously.

"Never mind, I seem to be a little clumsy today... not that it matters, anyway. Oh, and it might take me a little while to find my surprise, I was not expecting to be good to you tonight. Be so kind and wait that long, please."

Had Harry been able to see the disturbing elation sparkling in the Lord's eyes as he dragged the red-haired woman out into the hall, he would not have given him the slightest bit of trust.

#####################################################################################

A/N: Gah... short again, but at least it didn't take long. And I just couldn't resist leaving you readers to wonder instead of making the chapter longer, so... sorry. *innocent puppy eyes*


	7. Chapter 7

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 7

The first thing that Ginny could make out was the sharp, burning sensation of pain of an open wound at the back of her throat, and a stream of blood running down it and filling every corner of her mouth. She had to swallow some of it as her eyes were adjusting to the dim light of candles. She tried to scream, but merely choked on blood when she saw Him-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named kneeling before her and watching her with casual amusement.

The next thing she realized was that her tongue was gone and that she could not open her lips. The attempt, she found out the hard way, hurt like hell.

"Shh," You-Know-Who whispered, "this is a rather unsettling situation for you, I understand, but be so kind and don't make this any harder for me or for yourself, will you?"

She was rendered speechless, would even have been if she could still speak, as the images of what had happened before she had been knocked out came back to her.

At the moment, from her neck down she was as good as unable to move at all. She was tied to a chair, her arms firmly restricted to the sides of her torso, long ropes wrapped many times around her, and her legs and feet were tied together more times than could have been really necessary as well.

"Listen, girl," You-Know-Who told her, his eyes alight with cruel joy, "you just had to know, did you not? Well, well... curiosity killed the cat, they say, and this is a saying that you certainly should have taken more seriously. I am delighted that you did not, however. You would not believe for how long I have been waiting for this."

Detachedly, Ginny noticed through the curtain of pain and cold fear obscuring her senses that he was nearly trembling with excitement.

"You are going to find out, Ginny, the entire truth. Does that sound good to you?" He smiled in a terrible mockery of kindness. "I feel that it might be necessary for me to give you warn you, though, that all you have to do is make one single wrong move or even try to make a sound, and as much as I regret to say so, I will be forced to kill both your faithful husband and yourself. So, can we agree on that you are going to stay completely still?"

Ginny nodded, a tears flowing from her eyes and down her face. When they came in contact with the skin around her mouth, the burning pain seared up a little bit more.

"That is very good, I knew that we were going to get along, my dear," You-Know-Who said, apparently satisfied, "And now, let us see exactly how faithful our lovely darling Harry is to you, shall we?"

###############################################################################

"Took you long enough to come back," muttered Harry, "What the hell were you doing?"

"My apologies," the Lord replied, untying Harry's feet, "Come with me, I think we should make it to the bedroom this time. Haven't had that happen in a while, have we?" He helped Harry up and guided him into the other room.

"Just so you know," said Harry on the way, "I'm not falling for whatever game you're playing right now."

"As long as you are playing along..." Voldemort led his blindfolded lover to the bed and cuffed his hands to the iron bedposts. His Chosen One was simply beautiful, unknowing of what was really going on around him, with the mess of black hair spread out on the pillow and his skin, almost glowing in the candlelight, distinctly standing out against the dark sheets.

"You're looking as adorable as ever tonight, do you know that?" he told Harry and chastely kissed him on the lips. When he drew back, he turned to the side of them on which Ginny was sitting tied to the chair, as still as though petrified, only the flow of tears continuing to leak from her eyes.

The Lord gave her a mischievous smile. He had been disappointed to find that, having come after Harry in only her nightshirt and under the invisibility cloak, she had had no wand on her, too trusting as she was to expect any real danger to herself in her own house. At any rate, he thought that he could rightfully compliment himself on the precision of the stitches he had made to sew her lips together. He leaned back over his Harry. The younger man was tense, still waiting for something to happen to him. Voldemort slid a hand through his messy black hair, combing it with his fingers. He whispered into Harry's ear again, too quiet for Ginny to understand, "Trust me now, Harry, I can promise you I don't feel like hurting you, at least not today. Next time, maybe, but for now, just relax and enjoy this... it is a rare thing for me to be this gentle, as you should know best..."

Harry was close enough to believing Voldemort's sweet whispers, and even if the other wizard was going to break his word, whatever... he relaxed, lying soft on the comfortable mattress with satin sheets beneath him, and leaned into the Lord's cold, soothing touch.

"My Harry... my sweet... beautiful... Harry..." Voldemort said in between trailing kisses along Harry's jawline. Harry sighed. Whatever reason the Lord had for doing this... it felt damn good.

"You're all mine tonight, every little piece of your skin, every one of your bones, every hair on your head..." Instead of unbuttoning it, Voldemort ripped Harry's shirt open again.

"Are you intent on destroying all of my clothes?" Harry chuckled, "You do know that I keep repairing them every time, don't you? You will never get them all."

Voldemort smirked and turned his head to Ginny again, his head against Harry's chest, and silently mouthed, 'every time'.

He trailed the forked tips of his tongue down Harry's chest, closely observing in the up-and-down movements of the ribcage under him that were becoming more irregular as he continued his ministrations. He lightly bit on a nipple and blew cold air onto it, taking in the goosebumps he was causing to erupt on Harry's soft skin. The cooling sensation of the Lord's dry, almost scaly skin on his own lulled Harry into letting go, making him stop caring about his prior distrust altogether.

"My Harry..." breathed Voldemort again, unbuttoning Harry's jeans and pulling them off, along with Harry's socks that he threw to the Ginny-less side. Then he took Harry's penis in his hands, playfully stroking it to make it even harder than it already was.

"That is also mine," he stated matter-of-factly, "my pretty little Harry's cock, my pretty cock. It likes me, see?"

Harry had to laugh at the Lord's antics, slightly breathless from excitement.

Ginny turned her head away and shut her eyes. She couldn't bear to watch this, she tried very hard not to, but there was something, almost a kind of compulsion, that made her look back again and again. You-Know-Who was obviously teasing her, as well as, in a different way, Harry. She noticed him watching her reaction out of the corner of his eyes as he kneeled between Harry's legs and lowered his mouth down on her husband's cock, first flicking his tongue over the tip and then circling it before taking the entire length in as far as it went.

Harry's hips jerked, and he moaned blissfully. Ginny's stomach turned, and a part of her last meal shot back up her throat. She still had no way of opening her lips, and every try hurt worse than the last, so she had to swallow it down again, her eyes still glued in horrified fascination to the couple on the bed.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no... no...

"Voldemort... what's the matter with you today?" Harry asked breathily, his voice an indication of his deep approval of whatever the matter was.

Voldemort let him slip out of his mouth. "Call me your Lord."

"Don't stop..."

"Call me your Lord."

"Fuck, don't stop... My Lord... just... god, yesssss..." Harry hissed as he felt the cold mouth envelop his length once again, teeth scraping along the highly sensitive skin.

His head bobbed up and down and he pressed his tongue against the flesh in his mouth, tightly wrapping his long fingers around Harry's balls and massaging them, scraping his nails across them while making sure to stay right on the thin line between intense and painful. He continued this until Harry's movements became entirely uncontrolled, his hands balled to fists and his entire body was thrashing on the bed and messing up the sheets, the overflow of sensations becoming too much to stand. The Lord grabbed his hipbones to hold the other man in place and sucked on his dick even harder, tightening his cheeks around it to cause more friction.

With another, drawn-out hiss, Harry spilled his cum into the Lord's throat. Voldemort still pressed the younger man into the mattress, keeping his shudders somewhat restrained. He swallowed a part of the bitter liquid, made a show of contently licking his lips for Ginny, and then quickly crawled over to cover Harry's mouth with his own to give Harry a taste of himself as well.

Harry's soft, wet lips trembled against his thin ones. The Auror trapped the dark wizard's tongue in between his own and the roof of his mouth, his teeth digging into it and causing a small, approving noise from the back of Voldemort's throat.

"Harry, dear," the Lord hissed once Harry had let go of his tongue and allowed him to end the kiss, still leaning down close to Harry's face, "what do you think, what would your lovely wife say if she could see us now?" He smirked pointedly at Ginny, his eyes twinkling in a way that reminded her strangely of Dumbledore - a horrible, twisted version of Dumbledore, of course.

She apprehended Harry's answer, hoped that he would be reminded of his love to her, of that what he was doing was wrong... her husband as she knew him would surely come to his senses any moment now...

"Ah, don't remind me..." said Harry, "she's never going to see, so what does it matter?"

Ginny had thought that she didn't have any tears left to cry, but she was proven wrong as they began to fall as hard as before again, and silent sobs wrecked her entire body, the tight ropes cutting deeper into her flesh with every small movement.

"Hypothetically," Voldemort persisted conversationally, making himself comfortable on top of Harry, glancing alternately at the little slut and his Harry, "if she were here right now, and she were to find out all about how you have always been drawn to me... even during the war... long before you decided to wed that little slut... how our connection was so strong that you could not resist the temptation to bring me back... in fact, you made that decision mere hours after my death, did you not?" He was absently drawing patterns on Harry's upper chest and neck. "You have always belonged to me, ever since the day I marked you as mine... shared my soul with you, my Horcrux," outlining Harry's lightning bolt scar with a fingertip, "and even now, you are still the one thing keeping me alive... and keeping me here, all to yourself, because you cannot see yourself living without me, ever... you could almost say that I am your second half, could you not?"

"Not my better one, that much is for sure," Harry threw in dryly.

Voldemort snorted, amused. "If she knew that all there ever was between you and her was lies, that she might as well not even know you, that I am the only one who ever truly did... And if she knew where you left that meaningless ring she gave to you..."

"Oh, I thought you said that you had absolutely no idea?" Harry interrupted sarcastically.

"You made it clear enough that you knew I was lying, did you not? So, back to the topic... do you believe that your darling Ginny would understand?"

Harry sighed, slightly exasperated. "Hardly."

"No? If she knew, do you believe that she would tell?"

"Jesus, what is it with your fixation on Ginny? I'm damn glad she doesn't know, and can you do me a favor and please just leave it now?"

"Well, so if she ever did find out and tell the... authorities, if you will... you could go to prison for what you have done, my dearest... and that is one thing I could not allow to happen now, could I?" Even without seeing a thing, it was evident to Harry that there was a sly grin on Voldemort's face simply from the tone of his voice. "As tragic as that would certainly be, I would have no choice but to kill your wife for you, would I not?" the Lord said, "Unless you'd rather..."

"Oh by Merlin, just leave it, will you?" said Harry, "you're giving me a headache. She has never found out in all these years, and it's going to stay that way, so this is really a moot point."

"Yes, but foolish as she may be, she is getting suspicious, is she not?"

"Mind my headache, okay? Just shut the fuck up and kiss me."

"Sorry, honey..." the Lord sing-songed and happily obliged, sliding a hand under Harry's head to press their mouths closer together and fiercely shoving his tongue past Harry's invitingly parted lips. Teeth collided and Harry caught Voldemort's lower lip between his teeth, biting down and sucking while the dark wizard was wetting his own mouth with Harry's spit.

"Do I kiss better than she does?" Voldemort asked annoyingly as soon as he pulled back.

Harry could only groan.

"Answer me."

"I don't know," said Harry noncommittally, "different, I guess. You can't expect me to compare you and Ginny, you two don't have anything in common at all."

"Except for you," said the Lord, "you are the one thing that we do have in common."

Harry laughed.

"Have I told you yet that you are absolutely beautiful, my Harry?"

"I know," smirked Harry.

"And gorgeous... I can hardly restrain myself from ravishing you long enough to exchange some small talk," Voldemort directed these words at Ginny rather than at Harry, "If it were up to me I might just never let you go, my darling Harry..."

"Honestly, what is up with you?"

"What are you talking about?" Voldemort feigned innocence.

"You know what I mean," insisted Harry, "THIS. You're acting really freaking weird. Too good to be true."

"I imagined you would appreciate some sweet-talking."

"Well, it would be nice from anyone else, but coming from you it's just plain creepy."

Voldemort chuckled quietly. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"If you wish..."

"And while we're at it, I must not forget to ask... am I a better fuck than her?" the Lord teased Harry.

"Oh my, you... and have I told you yet that you're an absolute pain in the ass?"

"Your favorite pain in the ass, I am." He placed a quick kiss on his Chosen One's lips and then sat up and reached for the nightstand.

"You healed my lovely writing last week... I understand, of course, Ginny cannot see... but I liked it, I liked seeing my claim on you, so..."

Underneath the blindfold, Harry rolled his eyes as he felt the dark wizard carving exactly the same words into his chest as he had done last time, Property of Lord Voldemort.

"She almost did see, you know?" Harry bit out, his voice strained from repressing a reaction to the pain, "I just barely managed to get away, she was pretty affronted, I think."

"Really?" asked the Lord and conspiringly winked at Ginny.

"Yeah, I... fuck, ouch, not so deep... you know, when she was already back when I came upstairs in the morning, she believed that I'd been out and had gotten into some kind of fight... she wanted to look at the wounds, but well, THAT would not have gone well, so I basically had to run away. Might have come across as rather rude."

Voldemort noted with satisfaction the slightly greenish coloring of Ginny's face. Not only was her husband sleeping with the enemy, no, they were also talking more intimately than she and Harry did most of the time... they talked about private things, even about her... she had often felt as if there was something inexplicably wrong with the conversations that she had with Harry, as if there was always something forced in everything he did and said to her... what hurt the most was the realization that the intimacy that she had so desired to have with Harry for all of their marriage was something that You-Know-Who seemed to have as if by nature.

This was where Harry had been all the time, why he had always seemed to be so far away... her instinct had not deceived her... Harry had never been entirely there with her because he had always been with HIM.

Unable to do anything else, Ginny continued to watch as the foundations of her life were crumbling in front of her.

Finished with his work, and visibly pleased with it, Voldemort put the knife back onto the nightstand.

"I should just prove to you how much of a better fuck than your wife I am, don't you think?" he purred suggestively.

"Sounds good to me, My Lord," said Harry, and, "mmm..." when Voldemort began to prepare his opening. Then the dark wizard lifted Harry's legs over his shoulders and, catching Ginny's desperate eyes, thrust into him in a fluent motion, hitting that spot inside Harry right on and causing the dark-haired wizard to moan.

Voldemort pulled out entirely and thrust back in. "Like that?" he asked mischievously, never once breaking eye contact with Ginny until she averted her gaze.

"Yesssssssssss.... like that a lot..." hissed Harry, "and don't you dare stop anytime soon, My Lord."

"You must not cum yet, though, I want to take turns," Voldemort informed him, continuing his rhythm. Every time Ginny gave in to the temptation to look again, gave in even though every time she did look was another stab and twist into her heart, she found herself caught in the Lord's unyielding, coldly amused stare.

"My Harry," he told her smugly, "all mine."

He thrust harder, faster, knowing from years of experience exactly how to make his Harry melt into a writhing mess in his arms.

The Chosen One looked exquisite like this, depraved of his sight, caught in a blind haze of passion, his cheeks rosy and flushed and the Lord's claim of ownership carved in bloody letters into his flesh.

When he knew that Harry had almost reached the edge of orgasm, he slowed down considerably. "Not yet," he chided.

Harry attempted to collect himself while still enjoying the sensation of Voldemort burying himself inside him over and over again.

The Lord pulled out and without delay impaled himself on Harry's hard-on. He leaned down and quieted Harry's soft moans with a passionate kiss. He shifted around on Harry while kissing him, then abruptly sat back and rode Harry, steadying himself with his hands on the Auror's thighs and still never once letting Ginny out of his sight. The slut was shaking heavily against her restraints, her eyes puffy and red and her hair stuck in wild strands to her face by dried tears. Blood was running down from some of the stitches around her lips. That was not his fault, the foolish girl should just leave them shut, really. The two lovers came almost simultaneously, the Lord splaying his cum over Harry's stomach, clenching his muscles around the other man and driving him to orgasm as well, feeling his Harry's cum shoot into him.

He remained where he was, leaving Harry's now limp organ inside him. To Ginny, he made a suggestive gesture, indicating just how satisfied he was with his Harry's performance.

Cat-like, he stretched out on his lovers chest again, smiling contently to himself. He pecked Harry's shoulder-blade, merely because it was the easiest thing for him to reach.

"Affectionate, are we?" asked an amused Harry.

"Naturally, as affectionate as always," joked Voldemort, "you know me, sweetie-pie."

"Oh, yes," Harry played along, "my oh-so caring, compassionate lovey-dovey Dark Lord..."

"You got it absolutely right, my pretty little boy-toy..." the Lord chuckled and playfully bit Harry's shoulder, pulling a bit of flesh up with his teeth and then letting go again.

"At least you never lose your sense of self-irony," commented Harry.

"I have not asked you yet... how are you, anyway?"

"Me? Fine, I suppose..."

"It it possible for you to elaborate on this with a bit more detail?"

"Well, for one thing I think Ginny isn't as suspicious as before... in any case, she's stopped asking me questions all the time and is acting pretty normal..."

Voldemort lifted an eyebrow at the woman. "That is nice... I don't really like how she is always keeping you away from me, anyway."

"She IS my wife, you know."

"Your wife that you lie to on a daily basis, and have been cheating on even before you married her... that one, yes?"

"Your jealousy is seriously unbecoming, My Lord."

"I have every right to be jealous when some worthless, bloody whore touches what is mine. She's not even close to being good enough for you."

"And you are?" Harry asked, skepticism evident in his voice.

"I am just right for you, do you not agree? Exactly what you need, my dear."

"If you say so... you should not forget, though, that she has given me three children... that is not something you can say of yourself."

"I would be very surprised if I ever managed to give you children, Harry," the Lord said in a dry voice, "not that I cannot try, of course..."

Harry laughed, "Never mind, I'm not too crazy about having kids with half your genes, anyway."

"We would have a bunch of messy-haired, speccy red-eyed little inferi killing anything in their path, heroically and for idealistic reasons, of course."

"Spare me. Please... just spare me."

"Alright, then not. I'm not complaining. I will have to annoy you with this again, though, Harry... I want a straight answer..." he switched to Parseltongue, "if your wife ever found out about you and me, and you had to make a decision... what would it be?"

"I really don't know," Harry replied, easily falling back into the ancient language, "why do you have to keep asking?"

"I want to know, obviously. I understand that you would rather not make such a decision at all... uncomfortable as it may be, that changes nothing about the fact that you may happen to have to make it any day... it is something that you ought to think about."

"I'll think about that another day."

"You mean that you will continue to delay it until it is too late to have any time left to think. I will not let you get out of this now, I want to discuss this with you, and we are going to discuss it now."

"And if I were to tell you I would put Ginny over you? You're acting sensible now, but if I said anything like that you would immediately go psycho on me again."

"Tell me whatever you think, Harry. Just do it, I daresay I can handle hearing something I don't like."

Harry sighed, making himself comfortable. This might turn out to be a long conversation, he thought.

"Well..." he began in English, but Voldemort interrupted him.

"I would much prefer if we were to talk in Parsel," he said. This was something he did not want the ginger slut to overhear.

Harry shrugged. He didn't see the point, but alright... fine with him. "You pretty much know the deal... I love Ginny, I care about her... and we have the children, that is really not something to throw away just like that."

"You would not be throwing anything away just like that, Harry, you would be doing it for me."

"Yes, but the thing is... I know I can't stay away from you, I have really given up on that, but you just can't give me what she does, you know? You can't give me your heart, not when you don't even have one."

"I would say that I am giving you a lot, my dear. More than I could ever imagine giving anyone else, that must count for something." the Lord said quietly and nuzzled his head against Harry's collarbones.

"It does... you can't have me all to yourself, though, it just wouldn't be right."

"If not right... would it not at least be honest? At least admit that being with me feels so much more right than being with her, Harry."

"Ginny is a wonderful, amazing woman..." Harry said.

"Perhaps that is true, I would not know," Voldemort replied, "however, she is not the one for you, and anything else that you might like to tell yourself is, truth be told, nothing but a lie."

"And then there are always the kids."

"If she actually knew you as I do, do you believe that she would still be willing to raise them together with you?"

"Likely not... she doesn't know, though, so there is no problem."

"We are talking about a hypothetical situation here, Harry, but one that could occur at any time."

"Well, I most definitely would not let you kill her, no matter what. I would never forgive you if you did. She wouldn't want to stay with me, I suppose... to be honest, I have actually thought about leaving her for her own sake, and the children's... they would be better off with her than with me, I suppose. Still, I prefer to avoid that situation altogether. It's been working well enough so far, has it not?"

"It is not going to work forever."

"You don't know that."

"I would be a fool to believe so. Thus, I have to contemplate the things that you are never ready to. You know that you would get a life sentence in Azkaban for what you have done."

"You might want to be grateful I did it nevertheless."

"I am. Anyway, seeing as you are so against killing her, could you live with making her swear an Unbreakable Vow to keep your secret, and then forever part ways?"

"This is getting rather concrete for a situation we don't have to deal with at the moment, is it not?"

"I do not want to repeat myself," hissed Voldemort.

Harry was silent for a while, lost in thought. "Perhaps, that could be a possibility, given she would ever agree with something like that..."

"I have to make a confession," the Lord told him, holding Harry tight, "try to stay calm."

"Okay... this is not sounding good."

"The reason I am asking you all these things is because Ginny followed you down here tonight. She knows, Harry."

"What?... You're kidding, right..."

"Sorry, my dear. I am not kidding. That is why I blindfolded you, and what took me so long earlier was to tie your wife to a chair so she could watch us."

Slowly, the full impact of the situation began to dawn on Harry. "You did not. Tell me you did not do that," he began to panic, "Untie me, right now! Ginny! Let me see for myself!" He remembered that he was still speaking in Parseltongue, and shouted in English, "Ginny! Ginny, are you there? I'm so sorry, Ginny... I..."

"There is no going back now, Harry. Shh..." he placed a finger over Harry's lips to keep the other man listening, "stay calm. She won't be able to answer you at the moment, anyway. Fact is that we have two possibilities now. I will not let you go to Azkaban. I could kill Ginny, or you could make her give the Vow. I believe that if she cares at all about your beloved children, she will do that."

"How... - how could you?"

"Ah, but as you said yourself, Harry, you know me. You expected nothing else, did you?"

"I can't believe you, you... you..." Harry could not think of an expression bad enough to do the Lord justice.

Voldemort untied the blindfold around Harry's eyes. The Auror immediately looked around for his wife, and saw her tied up with her mouth sewn shut. She looked as if she had been crying.

"Ginny..." he gasped pleadingly, trying to make a move toward her but held back by the handcuffs fixing him to the bedposts. Ginny turned her head away from him. Even if she had been able to speak, there was absolutely nothing that she had to say to the traitorous savior.

"Get off me, you bastard! I don't want you to touch me!" Harry screamed at Voldemort, trying to throw him off.

The other wizard stayed put, unimpressed. Instead, he now addressed the red-head, "Ginny, we could say that now you know all there is to know about your faithful husband... the question that matters to me is, do you want to get out of this alive?"

Ginny didn't understand what You-Know-Who was playing at, so she just tried to shoot him her best glare, which ended up at best looking defeated.

"Think hard, Ginny... would you be prepared to swear on your life never to lose a word about this to anyone in exchange for the chance to take your brats and disappear?"

There was a minute of silence in which nobody even moved a single muscle, then slowly, Ginny nodded in surrender.

"Very well," Lord Voldemort said complacently, "And what say you, my Harry?"

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A/N: And another repeat of this note, sorry about any weird mistakes that you may find, I have the excuse of drunk writing again.

Unless I change my mind, which is something that happens fairly often when I write, this is not the last that we have seen of Ginny, though. She's certainly not going to want Harry back after this, but don't expect her to fall into a hole.

Anyway, question to everyone. Ages ago, I read this amazing, extremely realistic one-shot where Ron was bulimic. Actually, I think it's the only fic I've ever read with about Ron suffering from an ED... does anyone know a fic that sounds like the one I am talking about here? I'd really like to read it again, but I can't seem to find it.


	8. Chapter 8

To ... - Thank you a lot. As I said, I'm not really sure yet what exactly will happen to Ginny now... there are still several possibilities. In any case, she's away from Harry. ^^

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Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 8

The next days were very uncomfortable. Following Voldemort's revelation, things had gone very quickly. As soon as she could after sitting through the Lord provisorily fixing her up well enough so she could make the Vow, Ginny had stormed upstairs. Harry had tried to follow her, but she had screamed at him to stay away from her. For all she cared, Harry could just lock himself up together with You-Know-Who and never come out again, that might in fact be the very best solution. The last thing Harry heard from her was that she never wanted to see him again, that she would be leaving at once and he could give the rest of her belongings to one of her brothers. She had made true on that, practically torn Lily out of bed, grabbed the next-best clothes she could and left on the Knight Bus, too distressed to risk Apparition, especially with a child.

Harry had taken leave from work and carefully shrunk and packed everything that he thought Ginny and the children might need. Left entirely to Harry's questionable sense of order, the house soon looked like a battlefield. Not seeing a point in cooking for himself, Harry dug up some old ravioli and chicken soup conserves from the back of a kitchen cupboard to eat straight out of the can and discarded the used cutlery in the sink.

He had not spoken another word to the Lord, still trying to come to terms with what the bastard had done.

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"Good Morning, Minister," said Graham Pritchard as he stepped into the elevator.

"Good Morning, Mr Pritchard," Percy replied indifferently.

"Have you heard about your sister yet?" Graham asked.

"My sister?"

"Yes, I had her in my office today... she asked to have a divorce from Harry Potter."

Percy sputtered. "A - what do you mean, a divorce?" No one in his family had ever had a divorce - if you got married, you stayed together for the rest of your life, you didn't just break up like that.

Graham launched into the tale. "Well, as it seems, she has already moved out. I don't know what exactly happened, she completely refused to give any reasons, she only kept repeating that she never wanted to see Potter again or let their children anywhere near him... she insisted that he was not going to appeal against any of that, but we'll have to see about that. Really dramatic, she kept breaking out in tears... they must have had some really nasty fallout there."

Percy had to steady himself against the wall, almost pressing the emergency button by accident.

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Lavender was annoyed out of her mind. Rumor was it that Harry and Ginny Potter had broken up, and after the scene that Ginny had caused a few days ago, people were quick to come to the conclusion that she had something to do with it.

"Honestly, I think I would be rich if I got a Galleon for every time anyone asked me this today, but I really don't know anything at all about whatever the bloody hell is the problem with Harry and Ginny," she snapped at the young reporter from Witch Weekly who was standing in front of her desk, hoping to get a good story, "I can assure you it has nothing to do with me, so if that is all, then please, please get the hell out of here and leave me in peace."

She banged her head onto her desk until the young woman gave up on her and left.

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The doorbell rang. Harry looked out of the window and saw Ron standing there. Shit, he had no idea what to say to him. For a moment he considered pretending not to be home, but that would only delay the inevitable, and anyway, he had to give Ron the rest of Ginny's stuff.

With a feeling of dread, he opened the door. "Hello, Ron."

Ron stared at his best friend as if he had never seen him before. "Do you mind telling me whatever happened?"

"Er - what did Ginny tell you?"

"Well, practically nothing, just that you had decided to split."

"Oh... Ron, look, I really don't want to leave you all out, but this is kinda complicated, and it is between Ginny and me... we both knew that it was time for us to part ways... please just trust me, this was for the best of everyone."

"So you don't think that you have anything to say to this, do you?"

"Sorry, Ron, I know Ginny is your sister and all, but... there is really no need to get you involved in this."

"She asked me to get her things, do you have them packed?" Ron asked icily.

"Yes, wait a second... here."

Ron tore the bags out of Harry's hands, and turned to leave without another word.

"I'm really so sorry, but I swear she's going to be fine, Ron," Harry shouted after him, "she's provided for, she'll have enough money to last her and the kids a lifetime, and..."

But Ron had already disapparated. Harry stood frozen in the doorway, then all of a sudden stepped back, slammed the door shut and kicked the umbrella stand over.

Ron was angry at him. Ginny hated him. He might not be able to be a real father for his children anymore.

And just like everything else that had ever gone wrong in his life, this was all Voldemort's fault.

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"Ron Weasley, please shut up about this now!" Hermione said irritatedly, "There is no point in constantly ranting about this, both Harry and Ginny obviously don't think that it's our business, and although I am sad about this as well, we should respect their wishes. Ginny is a perfectly responsible adult, you can't protect her forever. I can try to talk to Harry again myself, but I don't believe I have better chances than you...."

"I don't think you should talk to him, anyway," said Ron spitefully, "I can't believe him, you should have seen how he acted when I was there... like it's none of my business when my sister turns up here and locks herself in the guest room to cry for hours..."

"I'm still sure Harry would never hurt her on purpose, and even if we can't understand this right now..." she trailed off when the door opened and Ginny entered the kitchen, wearing Hermione's bathrobe over the nightshirt that she had arrived in and hadn't changed out of since.

"Stop it," Ginny said tonelessly, "I know you were talking about me, so just leave it." Absently, she helped herself to a sandwich and a bottle of water and retired back to the guest room again.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other helplessly.

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"Why doesn't she even want us to write a letter to Dad, though?" asked Albus.

He and his big brother James had had to hide in the empty showers after dinner to read their mother's letter without having to face nosy questions. The news about their parents had spread in the school like a wildfire, and as grateful as they both usually were for the popularity that they had had from day one due to their father's role in the war, currently they would have been a lot happier if not everyone was so intent on sticking their noses into their affairs. There were a lot of theories going around, some more and others less sensible, but none of which the boys thought very likely. In any case, they had heard everything from that their father had left their mother for another Auror to that Ginny had left because he was terminally ill and she couldn't face the strain. Even people merely expressing their condolences had become extremely annoying by now.

"No idea," said James, "but if we want to, she can't keep us from it."

"Maybe we really shouldn't..." Al was torn. "If Mom said not to... we don't know if there's a good reason, do we?"

James considered that. "I guess so... I really think they should at least tell us why, though, I'm really sick of people asking me stupid questions all day..."

"I know, me too," said Al, "let's write Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, then, we're not forbidden to do that."

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The front door of the house was already standing wide open when Lavender and Dawlish arrived at the scene. Not a good sign. Neighbors had alerted them, having heard loud noises and screams coming from the house. They were both keeping their guard as they entered, and looked around.

"Homenum revelio," Lavender whispered. There seemed to be no one there, but it looked like there had been a fight. Furniture was knocked over, and she quickly registered something on the wall near the stairs that she was sure were bloody handprints, as if somebody had tried in vain to hold onto whatever they could reach.

"Something's definitely happened here," she summarized, "but I guess we're too late."

"You can say that," said Dawlish.

"Well, let's see if we can find any clues as to what we missed, then," Lavender decided, closing the door behind them.

Apart from the obvious, the house seemed perfectly normal. Even though some things were in a mess and there was a hole blasted into the ground near the fireplace, probably from a curse, and an armchair must have had caught on fire, it didn't look like anyone had searched the house before them, so most likely the intruders had come only to kidnap the inhabitants. Cho, Lavender knew from her school days. Last February, she had attended Cho's wedding herself. The Asian woman, who had gone to become an Unspeakable, had in the end married one of her co-workers, Julian Rookwood. Lavender hardly knew Julius at all, except for that despite his father's treason, he had stepped into the Death Eater's footsteps at the ministry, of course apart from being a spy.

"This seems fairly pointless," Lavender stated after they had gone through the entire house, "We'll just have to report it and let them make a full investigation."

"Certainly," agreed Dawlish, "but in the meantime... how about a little refreshment at my place?" He suggestively winked at Lavender.

She raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, sure..." she replied in an unmistakably sarcastic voice.

"Why not? You didn't mind giving a married man a good time, after all..."

Lavender sent a cutting curse his way. Potter had better get this straight.

######################################################################################

It was getting very late in the evening, and Harry was pacing around in the kitchen, unable to sleep. Several times, he had already gone halfway down the stairs into the basement, only to turn around. He couldn't go down there, he couldn't let Voldemort get away with what he had done, without even showing him the proper reproachfulness and scorn... it was just that he was the only other person available to keep him company, and now that Ginny and Lily were gone, the house had become so empty and at the same time so narrow and unbearably constricting. In his restlessness, a sense of claustrophobia was taking Harry over, the walls seemingly closing in on him.

He tried to calm down, made coffee even though he knew that that would be counterproductive if he wanted to find sleep.

What could he do now? He needed something to do, anything to occupy his mind.

However, having to stand Lord Voldemort looking like the cat who swallowed the canary was not the best option. He doubted he would be able to keep himself from trying to kill the dead man a second time.

A solution came in form of the doorbell ringing again. He checked who it was. Lavender? They had never had anything personal to do with each other before. Well, still better than Ron or any other of the Weasleys, he supposed. He figured he might as well see what she wanted, so he let her in.

"Sorry for disturbing you at this time," said Lavender, "I understand if you'd rather I'd leave again, but I was only just done working and I thought we could have a short talk..."

"No, it's fine," said Harry, leading her to the kitchen table and pulling out a chair for her to sit down on, "Coffee?"

"Sure, thank you," said Lavender, looking around the disorderly place, "I heard about you and Ginny."

Harry set a cup down in front of her. "Lavender, I'm really grateful that you care, but I'd really rather not talk about it."

Lavender nodded. "That's okay if you don't want to. I just wanted to see how you are, and inform you, in case you are not aware yet, that everyone believes we're having an affair."

"Oh." Harry inwardly cursed. "I should've known... but you did tell them that's not true, didn't you?"

"Of course, but do you really expect people to take my word for it?"

"Hm, no, that would be against the rules of mass stupidity. I hope it was not very bad?"

"Well, let's say that the next article of Witch Weekly will most likely be featuring an article about you and your rudely unresponsive, self-harming love affair."

"I'm sorry. Crap, I didn't want to get you involved in this at all... that was just a really stupid coincidence that that happened in the first place... I really can't think of a way to solve this right now, anyway, except for acting as always and waiting for people to forget about it..."

"I guess, whatever... unless you had some kind of explanation to give them..."

"I don't."

"Anyway, when are you coming back to the office?"

"Not sure, sometime the next days I think..."

"I guess you need that time for yourself now. Still, today I was in after hours because Cho and her husband... well, nobody really knows what happened to them, but it looks like they were kidnapped."

That got Harry's full attention. "What?! Who kidnapped them, what happened?"

"I don't know... neighbors called us, but when we arrived there was no one there anymore... they must've put up a fight for sure, though."

"That's strange... and you really have no idea?"

"Not at all, I just said so... well, anyway," Lavender said, gripping her cup tight and looking uncomfortable, "you don't look good... I promise you I'm not going to bother you, but seriously, if you ever do want to talk... just so you know."

"Thank you, Lavender."

She got up. "See you at work soon."

####################################################################################

"Damn you," was Harry's only greeting to the Lord, having finally decided that he would go mad if left entirely alone.

"Sorry, sweetie-pie," he got as an answer, although Voldemort did not sound sorry at all.

"You just had to do this, didn't you?" Harry said accusingly.

"Yes, I did," Voldemort said matter-of-factly, motioning for Harry to have a seat with him as if he was not even aware that Harry had any reason to hold a grudge against him, "As it is, you can extend my space over the rest of the house now."

Fury welled up in Harry. "You're not even properly making an effort to apologize! But how could you, you're just too busy calculating how to turn the situation to your greatest advantage, are you not?"

"You have enough free space to share with me now, don't you? I promise I will disappear whenever there's anyone else there, but face it, if you don't let me out of here you'll have that all to yourself, and that could get very boring."

Harry's first impulse was to deny Voldemort's wish simply out of spite, but then a picture of the current state of the kitchen turned up in front of his inner eye. "I will allow you into the rest of the house," he said, causing Voldemort to look at him in disbelief. The dark wizard had not expected this to be so easy. But Harry smiled and continued, "under one condition. You do the cooking and cleaning. That used to be Ginny's thing, and now that you've managed to get rid of her, it is only just that you replace her."

"What am I, your house-elf?"

"No, but since apparently the fact that I used to have a wife bothered you so much, I'd think you should be glad to take over at the very least some of what she used to do, right? Fair trade, that's all."

Voldemort scowled, clearly affronted by the mere suggestion he do lowly housework. After some thought, he caved in, though. "Fine. You won't regret it."

"I can tell already that I will. Actually, right now I'm starting to regret making the offer in the first place."

"Too late to take it back now. So, I take it my efforts did not turn out to be fruitless, then." Voldemort reached out and pulled Harry closer.

Harry hesitated. "I'm really sick of you right now, but just hold me, please. And don't talk, it makes me angry when you say anything. Just be there and hold me."

Voldemort did so, wrapped his thin arms around his Harry and laid down on the couch behind him, pressing their bodies close together, completely silent and listening to the younger wizard's breathing. He couldn't be certain, but he thought that Harry might be crying.

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	9. Chapter 9

Thank you, lyla, for your wonderful compliment!

Something that Ajiruchan and AkiraKuran were wondering about, might be interesting for others as well, seeing as I haven't explained this in detail yet:

Voldemort still has his free will and is able to act on it, unlike a usual Inferius that will only follow orders. The connection he has with Harry now (and the power that Harry has over him) is that Harry is basically his creator, the person enabling him to 'live', and Harry could take that away at will. Also, if Harry were to die than Voldemort would 'die' along with him.

Free will or not, he can't just leave. For one thing, he will be kept inside the house by magic, kind of like he couldn't just break the door in the basement open and leave. Harry has now extended the wards keeping him inside, but he still would not be able to walk out the door or use the floo network. Even if he did, what Harry could do about it is, so-to-say, take his life-force away and find him again at any time. While Harry wouldn't last long against him in an actual, fair duel, this is definitely giving him an advantage.

This creator's power makes it slightly easier for Harry to control him, mainly because it improves the possibilities in rituals, like the imprisoning wards. For example, like when Dumbledore created the wards around Privet Drive, the thing enabling him to do so was the blood connection between Harry and the Dursleys. It wouldn't have worked the same way on just any house. The ritual Harry performed works as well as it does based on the fact that, in terms of magic, Voldemort is now 'his creature'. Thus in a magical sense, Harry has a 'right' to do this to him.

So, the basics are that he is like a higher form of an Inferius (in case anyone has ever read any of Garth Nix's Abhorsen books, think of the difference between Dead Hands and the Greater Dead, it's similar to that, only Voldemort has a bit more control than even them). To a certain extent, he just has as many liberties as he does because Harry lets him, so it would not be a good idea to seriously antagonize Harry.

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Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 9

Cho's head felt like it was filled with bricks, and she lacked the energy to lift it as she was slowly coming back to her senses. This was not her bed she was lying on... the floor, she supposed. Why was she lying on the floor? Had she been drinking? She tried hard to remember.

No, that wasn't it, she and Julius had left the Ministry together and gone straight home and he had gone upstairs and she had been calling for the cat, and then the door had blasted open. She remembered complete strangers suddenly standing in her living room, their wands pointed at her... she had immediately drawn her wand and defended herself, but had been clearly outnumbered, and suddenly all had gone black.

And the cat... she hadn't even had time to feed the cat.

The next, much more terrible thought followed. Where was her husband? She tried to call out, but her all she could produce was a rough whisper.

At least her mind was clear again. Now, first things first. And for a start, she had to lift her head. Darkness... she waited for her eyes to adjust and tried to make out shapes around her.

The room she was in was completely unfamiliar. Nothing to indicate where she was. A window leading to... she couldn't see much from down on the floor, except for darkness... the sky?... if she looked closely, she could make out bars over the window.

She searched her pockets for her wand, but it was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it had fallen the floor around her? She doubted that, but nevertheless she felt around for it hopefully.

There was something... skin. A hand. Long, scraggly hair. Julius. She'd have to make him get his hair cut soon, Cho thought. As soon as they had gotten out of here. She tried to speak to him, nudged him to get a reaction, to no avail. For a few agonizingly long seconds she was convinced that he was dead, before she found a pulse.

A wave of relief flooded her and she found the strength to crawl to the door. It didn't open. She knocked, hammered against the door, croaked for help... a short while later, she just lay back down on the ground, exhausted to the brink of unconsciousness.

At least she was not alone.

######################################################################################

The moment Harry was out the door to apparate to the Ministry, Voldemort had begun to thoroughly check the wards keeping him inside the house for any weaknesses, but it appeared that Harry knew what he was doing. He wouldn't be able to get out, not even if he ever did manage to steal Harry's wand. Rightfully paranoid, Harry had known he would try, and had looked up a ritual normally used by the human guards in Azkaban to ensure that it would be useless in his hands.

He had to give Harry some credit for the good work, in fact he was even somewhat proud of him. His former nemesis had become careful. Although he wouldn't really have expected anything else, he had not even particularly gotten his hopes up in the first place. And in the highly unlikely case that he should ever be able to escape, he would not get very far. Not with the control that Harry had over his life, but there was never anything wrong with trying.

Giving up, he thoroughly investigated his new, extended prison, every corner of every room. After being locked up in the same place for over nineteen years, this change was more exciting and fascinating than he could have imagined. The notion seemed rather pathetic to him, but all those new impressions were nearly overwhelming. The best thing was that he could see out of the windows that were in most rooms. Only now did he fully realize how much he had missed the sky. He had never quite appreciated how impressive it was.

He brought some of his things upstairs and placed them where he liked. He didn't have the impression that Harry had changed the bed sheets since Ginny had left, not even made the bed at all, really, so he did that and burnt the old sheets in the fireplace. The slut had touched them, after all.

Sometime in the late afternoon, he remembered that Harry had asked him to cook. Um... how did that work again? And without a wand?

He looked through the kitchen, thinking irritatedly to himself that if Harry really expected him to cook, then it would not have been too much to ask for to give him something to work with.

On top of that, Harry had left a bunch of empty cans on the counter. Consequently, he opened a window and threw them at a balding muggle man in a grey suit who was passing the house and, unable to see that there even was another house, was entirely baffled as to where these things were coming from.

Then he proceeded to think about what to make Harry for dinner. Somehow he doubted the Auror would much appreciate another can of chicken soup. Last week's dry bread? Not really, nor the rotting salad in the fridge. He selected anything that was already in the process of decaying and waited for the next unfortunate passerby. Apart from everything in the spice cupboard, the only things he found that looked still edible were oatmeal, a pineapple, a packet of spaghetti, a jar of pickles, jelly, honey, barbeque sauce and raisins.

Fine... if Harry was making him cook he had better be prepared to eat the result, though. He skinned the pineapple and cut it up, threw everything into a pot with some water and put that onto the stove.

Satisfied with his work, he went back to looking out of the window.

#######################################################################################

"Hey?" Harry asked, looking around for Voldemort as soon as he had entered the house. He immediately noticed a burnt smell coming from the kitchen. There was... something... in a bowl on the table.

"What the hell is that?" he asked the Lord, who was standing at an open window, apparently completely engrossed in watching something outside.

Voldemort tore his eyes away from the window at last and answered matter-of-factly, "That? That is your dinner, obviously."

"Oh..." Harry looked scared. "Are you sure it's not going to jump at me or anything?"

Voldemort scowled. "You wouldn't have done any better. I had to be creative with the few things that were not entirely rotten."

"Well... thank you," said Harry unconvincingly and sat down at the table. Voldemort joined him. Harry forced a few bites of slightly burnt pineapple-spaghetti down, before claiming not to be hungry.

"What have you been doing all day, anyway?" he asked to change the subject.

"Not much. I looked around here a bit and moved some things upstairs."

"This feels weird," Harry said abruptly. When Voldemort said nothing, he elaborated, "This entire picture. You just sitting here with me, as if that were normal... it has always been Ginny that I used to come home to... and now this seems really surreal, you know?"

"Get used to it, then."

"What are you talking about, anyway, where did you move anything to?"

"My things to our bedroom, of course."

"Our bedroom," Harry repeated in an uninflected voice. They had neglected to discuss this issue before, but it seemed that to Voldemort there had not even been any question in the first place.

"I couldn't tell which side of the bed was yours, but I took the one away from the door."

"Oh, just feel free, it's not like there's anyone else's opinion to take into account," Harry said, "I expect that next thing you'll be telling me to take you along whenever I go out."

Voldemort pretended to consider that. "I wouldn't mind at all," he said, "Unfortunately even I can see how that would look a little strange."

"You really went too far with Ginny," Harry said to remind Voldemort that he was not through with this yet.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"There's not much I can do about it now. I just wanted to let you know it really was not okay. Not at all."

"I see. Then I will let you know that I recognize that that is your opinion."

Harry rolled his eyes. He was not going to say so, but he felt a little inwardly relieved that the Lord had simply taken the liberty to invite himself into Harry's house and bedroom. After the last days, Harry was actually glad for it, but he would not have been ready to offer anything to Voldemort for a long time.

"Cho and her husband disappeared," he said.

"Cho, as in Your-First-Kiss-Cho?"

"Yes, that one. Looks like she ended up marrying Rookwood junior... I haven't really had anything to do with her at all since our dating disaster at school."

"And what happened to them, then?"

"Not a clue. Apparently they must have been kidnapped, but no one knew anything else. I had to argue around with the Unspeakables today, they were both working in the department, so we tried to get them to disclose whatever they had been working on lately, in case that has anything to do with it... they just keep refusing, though, and insisting it can't be related, but what do I know?"

"Keeping secrets when your colleagues disappear does seem suspicious," Voldemort observed.

"Yeah, but then again, they're always sticking with that secrecy policy... You never know how much of it actually matters."

"There does seem to be something going on there, though... there was already some trouble at the Department of Mysteries weeks ago, after all."

"Well, clearly they don't judge it to be important enough to justify revealing any information at all..."

"That is a very essential factor of their job, as far as I know. They are sworn to keep absolute secrecy."

"Sure, but if there's any chance it could help saving people... who knows how much danger they're in, or if they're even still alive..."

"Probably. Since whoever kidnapped them did not kill them at the spot, they might still have had some use for them."

"Not everyone kills anyone they don't necessarily need alive if they can avoid it, but you wouldn't know about that, would you?"

Voldemort ignored the jibe.

"It's like running the gauntlet at the Ministry now," Harry told him frustratedly, "people really don't have anything better to do than going on about Ginny and me... I guess it wouldn't be so bad with Ron's support, but he is still acting rather short-spoken with me. Not very much fun to work with him at the moment."

"I'm sure most people will forget about it as soon as anything more interesting happens."

"Yeah, I'm feeling bad for Lavender, though. I keep denying it, but I can't get rid of that stupid rumor that there was something going on between her and me... especially since they actually theorized about that in the gossip column of Witch Weekly. I read Lavender's copy myself, it's mental."

"Do I have any reason to worry?" Voldemort asked in fake alarm. "You're not going to run off with the next-best pretty Auror, are you?"

Harry laughed, feeling a little better now that he had the dark wizard to talk to again. "Not going to happen, trust me."

"Good for her," Voldemort said in a light manner, but Harry knew that he was in fact deadly serious.

########################################################################################

While Hermione was upstairs keeping Ginny company, Ron re-read the letter he had received from the Potter boys another time. He would have to talk to Harry about it. It was one thing not to explain yourself to your friends, but Harry and Ginny would have to tell the children something. Perhaps not even the entire truth, he understood that there were cases in which it was justified to lie.

Ginny was still very down. Ron and Hermione had given up on trying to get her to talk, so they just looked after Lily for her and continued to offer their support.

########################################################################################

Harry felt funny when he finally told Voldemort that he had decided to turn in for the night, and excused himself to have a shower. Before today, he had paid the other wizards frequent visits, yes, but most of the time they had lived entirely separated from each other. It had not even really felt as if they were living in the same house.

And now, from one day to another their conditions had switched from being, at best, friends with benefits to living together like any other couple... Harry thought that he had missed the point where they had somehow become a couple, but that was what must have happened.

He just hoped that he had not made a mistake in letting his guard down and allowing the murderer to become such a great part of his life.

"Can you at all imagine how maddeningly boring it is to stay inside with absolutely nothing worthwhile to do for decades?" Voldemort asked randomly when they were lying in bed, turned towards one another. The dark wizard had, of course without finding it appropriate to ask, put on one of Harry's baggy t-shirts.

"No getting started on this, please," groaned Harry.

"You complain about less significant things often enough."

"If you say so... by the way, are you always going to do this?"

"Am I going to do what?"

"Come to bed with me. You wouldn't really need to."

"Let us say that I am going to do so very often, so you might as well already start getting used to it."

Harry was smiling inside. His handling of the current situation seemed somewhat forced to even himself, but he imagined that it could become a lot more natural in time.

Absently, he regarded the dead wizard at his side. He was not what you would generally describe as handsome, not since a good half a century ago, in fact he looked like a nightmarish form of the living corpse that he was. And yet to Harry, he possessed a certain sort of strange, deathly beauty from within. Undiluted power and brilliance underneath a broken exterior.

He felt suddenly very fond of Voldemort. Despite all of his many faults, the dark wizard could always be relied on to be strong, to never lose his composure or break down, and that calmed Harry considerably. It even made Voldemort's presence something that he felt he could hold onto, although the sense of danger was constantly there in the back of Harry's mind and never really went away.

Good to have you, he thought, but did not voice that.

Voldemort understood, anyway. He was staring at Harry with a victorious gleam in his eyes. Then he pulled his Harry closer by the hair and kissed him harshly. Nice, very nice. From now on he would be able to do this whenever he felt like it. He could definitely get used to the thought of that.

"Just one more thing..." Harry said once the Lord had let go of him, "Tomorrow, could you please cook something... you know... normal?"

"Provided that you get the necessary ingredients, sure."

"Yeah, sorry by the way... I've been a bit depressed the last few days."

"Oh yes, I almost forgot. Poor Harry lost his darling Ginny..." Voldemort said sarcastically.

Harry frowned at him. "I know this is terribly funny to you, but if you really want to stay you should keep that to yourself."

"Come on, Harry, you have to admit that you were the one playing her really bad."

"No... well, I was, but... Ginny and I, we were married. The relationship I had with her was different than what we have... it was serious, meant to be."

"For it all being oh-so 'meant to be', don't you think that it was based on a few too many lies?" Voldemort said darkly, "And don't you also think that it is time to get over it? Any more of this moping around would be extremely shameful. To be honest, if I were acting like you I would already have been mortified enough to pull myself together a while ago."

"I cared about Ginny, but you wouldn't understand that, would you?"

"My, my... did my little Harry love his pretty princess? Too bad that she hates your guts now."

"Thank you very much for that."

"Am I the one who cheated on her, or are you?"

"Exactly, all I did was cheat on her, which surely is a bad thing, but I still would have preferred her over you, and that is what really counts."

"Keep telling yourself that, if you need it so badly to feel better about yourself," Voldemort hissed. Harry could tell that he was offended by his words, but he didn't feel sorry.

"What right do you think you have, anyway, to tell me anything about what is right and what is not?" he snapped back, "and while we're at it, what right do you have to demand anything from me at all? You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me. I don't even know anymore why I even allowed you to come up here at all in the first place, you certainly don't deserve it." Annoyed, Harry turned around to face the other side. He felt Voldemort's hand in his hair and long fingernails scraping over his skull. He neither pushed the hand away nor acknowledged the touch at all.

"Do you still want to know where your wedding ring is?" the dark wizard asked.

"Where?" Harry asked, still facing the other way.

He felt the other man get up behind him, and heard him rummaging around for something. Then the living dead creature's weight settled back onto the mattress behind him and a spidery hand held a knife in front of his face.

"That's not my ring," said Harry, slightly confused.

"You will have to cut it out."

"Cut it out?" Harry took the knife just so Voldemort would stop waving it around so close to his eyes. He turned back to face him.

"It is somewhere around here." The Lord placed a hand on his chest.

"You... you mean I'd have to cut it out of you?"

Voldemort nodded.

"Sick," commented Harry. This seemed like a wonderful opportunity to let his frustrations out, though. He smirked and motioned for the dead wizard to pull his t-shirt off and lie on his back.

"Where did you put it exactly?" he asked.

"Somewhere in my lungs, you will have to look for yourself."

Harry shook his head. No wonder he had not found the ring when he really would have needed it... he could have searched the rooms for days, and it still would have been in vain.

How best to go about this, now? Harry regarded the Lord's bare chest, almost see-through skin stretching over the ribs. Cut it out, all right. He swallowed, locked his eyes with Voldemort's challenging ones, raised the knife and brought it down, ramming it hard into the flesh between two ribs and dragging it along. Voldemort cringed heavily, and forced a distorted smirk onto his face.

The ribs were in the way. Slightly insecure, he dug his fingers around one, causing the Lord to writhe in pain, only staying halfway still with great effort, and used the force of his weight to break the bone. He seated himself on Voldemort's hips to keep the other wizard's unintentional movements to a minimum so he had an easier time working precisely.

"Hurts?" he asked unnecessarily. Voldemort gave a tense nod, accompanied by a glare to chastise Harry for the stupid question. Harry leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, hoping that he would not pass out. He smiled encouragingly at his partner and broke another rib so he could hold the cut that he had made apart, and fit his hand through to inspect his lover's inner organs. They were cold, even colder than the Lord's skin, he noted.

"Bloody mess," he muttered to himself, biting his lip in concentration. Voldemort tried to chuckle, but it came out as a painful wheeze instead.

It took him a while of carefully attempted, but highly amateurishly performed surgery on a body shaking in agonized cramps until at last he came across something hard. Covered in blood as it was, he would certainly have overlooked the ring had he not been feeling around for it.

"There we are," Harry said, pulling it out and holding it up in his bloody hands for Voldemort to see, "Not that I even have any need for this anymore, but it was still fun looking for it."

The dark wizard would have replied if he had been able to speak. However, as his lungs were currently cut open and any attempt at taking a breath was pointless, all that he could do was form soundless words with his lips.

Harry had no idea what he was trying to say, but it mattered nothing, anyway. He was too caught up in the look in those eyes, the very same shade as the blood on his own hands. Agony pushed aside by cold, red steel.

Before Harry even knew what he was doing, he had dropped the knife and his lips were on the Lord's, his tongue shoving through between the rows of teeth.

He was aware that he would have to be cautious with the other wizard. While he was not yet healed, with the greater part of his chest still torn apart, Voldemort would have to remain lying on his back.

Fucking him while taking care not to worsen his already more than bad state or even cause any of his entrails to fall out... now that was a highly interesting challenge...

Harry decided that cleaning the blood-soaked mattress could wait until later.

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	10. Chapter 10

Thank you and hugs to kirara, ... and Melora for your reviews!

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Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 10

"You want to have breakfast, too?" Harry had gotten up very early after very little sleep and been one of the first customers at the grocery store around the corner.

"No, thanks," said Voldemort, "I'll be fine only watching you."

"Could you just pass the marmelade, please?"

"Which one?"

"Strawberry."

"There you go."

After eating the first few bites of his toast in silence, Harry suddenly burst out laughing uncontrollably.

Voldemort gave him a bemused look.

With visibly great effort, Harry managed to cease his laughing fit, but the instant he opened his mouth to say something, he began to shake with laughter again, holding his stomach and nearly sliding off his chair.

It took him several minutes to get himself under control and calm down, before saying, "Sorry, it's just... I just totally realized that we're sitting on the breakfast table together and I asked you to pass the marmelade..." More laughter.

"Is there any reason for me be concerned about your sanity?" Voldemort inquired.

Harry was gasping for breath in between further bouts of laughter, and the Lord could only shake his head.

#########################################################################################

Cho must have fallen into sleep or unconsciousness again, because when she next looked up the sky outside the window had brightened, and there was enough light coming through to be able to see the room clearly. There was a large jug of water and a plate with sandwiches and green apples on the floor next to her that she was certain had not been there when she had last been awake. She immediately reached for the water, too thirsty to even spare a thought to the possibility that it might be poisoned, and drank a few sips. Her throat was almost to dry to properly swallow, and although she drank very carefully, she could not avoid some of the water running down her chin.

Julius was still out cold. Now that it was brighter she could see a large laceration on the side of his head. The mousey-brown hair around it was clotted with dried blood.

She made another attempt to wake him up, even went as far as to slap him rather hard. Just as much use as before, none at all. When she thought of how thirsty she herself had been, she worried that he might become dehydrated on top of it all if he did not drink soon, so she put his head onto her lap and did her best to pour some water into his mouth and make him swallow without spilling too much.

If only there was a blanket there... her husband's skin was so unnaturally cold. She took off her robes under which she was wearing thin jeans and a shirt, and wrapped him in them. She was freezing herself, but he really did seem to be worse off.

Who had brought them here, she wondered, and what the hell did they want? The more she thought about it, the clearer her suspicions became.

The Veil of Death... she had not wanted to accuse Elena of having anything to do with the incident, but Julius had voiced this theory, and they had been intrigued by the mystery. Perhaps they would have been smarter not to pry, but it was a Ravenclaw's nature to seek knowledge, even if sometimes accepting ignorance would be so much easier.

#########################################################################################

When Harry came home, he did not find Voldemort right away. However, he found that a great part of his furniture had been completely rearranged. He shrugged to himself and chose to not even mention it. It was not as if Voldemort would give a damn about anything that Harry could have to say in the matter, anyway. Then he went looking around the house for the dark wizard. He found him in his study, sitting at Harry's desk with his legs bent under him and leafing through one of the Potter family's photo albums.

"Good evening, Harry," Voldemort said when he heard the door open, not looking up.

"Hey," said Harry.

"Where was this?" the Lord asked, pointing at one of the pictures.

Harry came and looked over the dark wizard's shoulder. The photo was of Charlie, Harry, a newly pregnant Ginny and very young James on the battlement of an old castle. The sky behind them was bleak, and the overall atmosphere of the castle was sinister and spooky, but the young family made up for that. Well, Harry was a bit distracted by something in the distance that was not included in the photograph, and Charlie was standing a step behind his sister and imitating bunny ears behind her, but Ginny was practically radiating happiness, a hand on her still flat stomach and encouraging James to wave into the camera.

"Romania," Harry explained, "that was when we were visiting Charlie, just after we found out Ginny was pregnant with Al."

"So is that Charlie, then?"

"Yep, that's him."

"Another ginger. That family really is like a disease... And what is it that you keep looking at?"

Harry mused. "I really can't remember, that was so long ago."

"And what about this one?"

"That is still in Romania, James ate a Fizzing Whizbee and Charlie thought it appropriate to take a photo before Ginny came running and panicked about the hole in his tongue."

Voldemort skipped a few pages back. "These two are George and Angelina, right?"

"Yes, that's them. That was on their wedding."

"Really? It doesn't exactly look like one. I always thought brides wore long white dresses, not tiny black ones..."

Harry laughed. "They're not really the type to go for anything conventional, are they? I think they didn't want to make too much of a fuss about the whole thing, so they just got married pretty much spontaneously with a handful of guests and celebrated in a muggle club... that was awesome, though."

"And...?"

"Oh, come on, I can't explain them all to you right now, that's way too many and I haven't eaten yet since breakfast," Harry said, "Why do you care, anyway?"

"I am merely interested, is there anything wrong with that?"

"No, I suppose not... well, do you want to come downstairs and sit with me again?"

Voldemort put the album down. "Fine, then," he said, but before anything else he pulled Harry down to give him a forceful kiss.

This time, the Lord had actually cooked a halfway decent meal for Harry, nowhere near comparable to what Ginny would have made, but still. Actually, it was simply steamed cauliflower, but Harry was relieved. Nothing weird.

"Ron talked to me again today," Harry said in between bites.

"Is that so?" The Lord was sitting around the corner of the table, supporting his head on his elbows and watching Harry apathetically.

"Yeah, he told me the kids had written to him..." Harry looked a little lost. "Do you know want to know what I did?"

"... Yes?"

"I told him I ditched Ginny for a muggle I had fallen for, but that it hadn't worked out with the muggle either. At least that will put an end to the questions... Anyway, I said that I will respect that Ginny wants to keep the children, and asked him to please explain that to them. He agreed, so... I just hope he'll do that tactfully, but I'm not really worried there."

"You should have stuck with the story about that Lavender chick. Honestly, a muggle... how embarrassing..."

"For one, I don't think there is anything embarrassing about falling in love with a muggle, they are people, too. And for another, I didn't want people to think of Lav as some kind of office-slut, she doesn't deserve that."

"Noble as ever, my sweet Chosen One... but no matter, as long as at least I know better."

"Eh. And what have you been up to?"

"I looked around in your belongings a bit. I never knew you were into Celestina Warbeck," Voldemort teased.

"Er... that freak of a witch's voice makes my ears bleed, so what makes you think I like her?"

"The extensive collection of albums on the shelf in your study."

"And you have never by any chance heard of this strange thing called privacy, have you?"

"Not of any that you have from me. Why do you have all her music then, if you don't like her at all?"

"Molly Weasley gave them to me for Christmas once. With all the grandchildren, she hadn't gotten around to make the typical pullovers for everyone."

"No loss. I don't like knitted pullovers on you, anyway."

"I've noticed that... why not, actually?"

"They feel wrong on you. Icky," said Voldemort, drawing little circles on the bare skin of Harry's lower arm with his fingertips. "Much better like this. And if you ever do have to wear one of these things, then stay away from me."

"Right..."

The Lord smiled suggestively. "On a different matter... I just realized that we have not made love in every room of the house yet. How about we start with the kitchen?"

"I'm not done eating yet."

"You are now," Voldemort pulled Harry's plate away.

"Hey!" Harry protested, but was silenced by the dark wizard's tongue in his mouth.

"Leaving me here all day, it is the very least you can do is provide me some entertainment once you are here," he hissed, standing up and tugging at Harry to get up as well. Then he steered Harry backwards and pressed him against the counter, their bodies flush against each other, and lightly bit down Harry's neck.

"Harry?" he whispered.

"Yes?"

"Take tomorrow off and stay with me."

"No, got too much to do right now that Cho's missing and all..."

"That is not your problem. And they will all only be talking about you and your muggle, so it will only be good for you to stay away until the worst is over, anyway."

"Hm... maybe you have a point there, but..."

"Without question. You're staying."

"But..."

"I said that you are staying," the Lord hissed and shut Harry up with another kiss.

########################################################################################

"Do you really think they are going to help?" asked Friedrich doubtfully, "Simply killing them would be much safer."

"We can convince them, I'm sure," Elena argued. Cho and Julius had never done her any wrong, they did not deserve to die for one small mistake.

"He agreed with her, so there is no need for further discussion," said Antonia, "and their blood is pure enough not to be spilled without necessity."

"That is true. Still, I'd say that Elena here needs to learn sometime not to let her sentimentality get in the way," Friedrich said snidely.

"This is not about my sentimentality, I merely want to leave them a fair chance," Elena defended herself, even if she had to admit to herself that this was not quite entirely the truth.

Karina took her side. "Elena has a point. All they have done is to be a little too curious, that alone is not a crime and should not be punished with death."

"Just don't leave her alone with them," Friedrich sneered.

That angered Elena. "I have proven myself trustworthy, have I not?"

"Certainly," he agreed, "I am merely worried that you might not have what it takes to assert yourself in case they don't want to play along."

Elena glared at him, but inside she was not so sure about that herself.

#########################################################################################

"Ginny?" Ron said uncertainly, opening the door a slot and waiting. He never knew how to speak to her these days.

"Hello, Ron," Ginny answered, "Come in."

She was sitting on the bed. Ron closed the door behind him and took a seat next to her, putting his arm around his sister. Ginny sat still for a moment, and then flung her arms around him and buried her head in his chest.

Ron patted her head, and said awkwardly. "Harry told me what happened."

Ginny looked up at him in confusion. "He did?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry, Ginny... I'm not sure if it will make you feel better at all, but that muggle woman left him as well, did you know?"

"What?"

"Yes, he told me so. Anyway, if there was something wrong enough in your marriage for Harry to start some affair, then really, it is for the best that it ended," Ron told Ginny soothingly, misinterpreting her incredible look, "You're an amazing, beautiful woman, Gin, and a great mother... It just didn't work out this time, but believe me, you will easily find somebody else once you feel ready to start looking again. Just don't give up now."

Ginny smiled. Of course, being her brother Ron would say so, but hearing these words from him nevertheless made her feel a little bit better.

##########################################################################################

Lavender wasn't sure whether or not to believe Harry's story, but she honestly didn't care. At least she was out of this now, thank you very much.

She had been working late again when she had decided to test her luck and look around in the Department of Mysteries herself, absolutely unofficially of course.

The problem was, even though she had now looked into several rooms, she had as good as no idea what whatever was in there was supposed to be, anyway. The Hall of Prophecies, she had recognized, even without ever having been there before. Another room full of... brains? Strange, but she wouldn't know if anything there was not as it was supposed to be... Every time she opened another door, this conclusion was confirmed. If there was anything not right, she would need a neon sign to point it out.

She tried the next door and frowned. Nothing in there, nothing at all. This didn't necessarily mean anything, most likely it was nothing but another unused room, but she made a mental note to keep it in mind, just in case there was anything deeper to it.

Another room, strange reddish bubbles everywhere.

Could these bastards not show a tiny bit more cooperation?

##########################################################################################

Harry woke up, feeling comfortable and not yet wanting to open his eyes. Out of habit, he took care not too move to suddenly, especially since he had his arms wrapped around Ginny and was cuddling her to him.

Ginny?

He opened his eyes, no, of course it was not Ginny... Ginny was gone.

Harry carefully disentangled himself from Voldemort and got up and made his way to the door, where he paused to observe the sleeping wizard. One of them had apparently pushed the covers too the far end of the bed. The Lord was again wearing something of Harry's, a dark blue shirt that could was was so much too large it could almost have passed as a blanket. Harry shook his head to clear the mistiness in his mind away, and went downstairs.

He thought about leaving while he could do so unnoticed. Not that he couldn't deal with an angry Dark Lord... but no, if he had really wanted to go to the Ministry today, he would have had to tell Voldemort straight-out yesterday. He had missed that chance, so here he was, and going to stay.

He made coffee instead. Should he...? Or was this too much? Shrugging, he put the coffee and cups onto a tray and brought that upstairs, setting it down onto the nightstand on his side.

"Good boy," Voldemort said, sitting up against the headboard, fully alert and looking quite like the Cheshire cat himself. He stretched a pale hand out to reach for one of the cups, "You're learning."

"Friggin' creepy..." Harry mumbled before sitting down cross-legged opposite the other wizard.

"What is creepy?"

"You are."

"Thank you."

"Why did you want me to stay, anyway?"

"Is there anything you could possibly be doing that is more important than making sure to keep me entertained?"

"Actually... yes," Harry said, and received a sideway glare in return.

"I have not heard that," decided Voldemort, "anyway, could you really not at least go for a walk with me or something like that? I wouldn't run away..."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You know the answer, so why won't you stop asking?"

The dark wizard shrugged. "I refuse to let go of whatever hope I can still afford to have."

Harry felt slightly bad for Voldemort once again, but he was not unaware that was probably the Lord's intention. "Sink your claws into my conscience, fine, that's alright..." he grumbled.

"Any chance it might work one day?"

"No, most definitely not."

"You would have said the same about leaving Ginny and letting me sleep in your bed not long ago."

"And instead of being grateful for that, you just need another project now, right? Annoy Harry until he lets you outside? And after that, talk him into watching you kill mudbloods? Lovely."

"You would let me do that?" the Lord simpered ironically, "Oh, Harry, you don't know how much that means to me..."

Harry slapped his palm against his forehead, not sure whether to be annoyed or amused. "So, what do you want to do now?"

"The offer about killing mudbloods didn't sound too bad..."

"That was not an offer."

Voldemort pouted, which looked even creepier on him than a smile, and Harry had to suppress a chuckle.

"Read something to me, then," the dark wizard said. He reached out and let a book float over from the windowsill that he handed Harry.

"The Appliance of Runes in Blood-Based Rituals?" Harry distastefully read the title, "Seriously?"

"It's not uninteresting."

"But not interesting, either, is it?"

"Oh my god, be careful, Harry, or you might just actually learn something," Voldemort teased, "Quick, run away before knowledge catches up with you. It bites."

Resigning, Harry opened the book and began to read.

#########################################################################################


	11. Chapter 11

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 11

Harry had not turned up today. That usually would not interest Lavender much, but she would have liked to give him a detailed report of what she had seen in the Department of Mysteries last night, and compare it to his experiences there in hopes that either of them could find any clues by that. She couldn't talk to just anyone, seeing as her nightly trespass could easily get her into disciplinary trouble, but she thought that Harry was trustworthy enough.

She caught herself chewing her nails as she was distractedly trying to get an overview of the files that somebody from Magical Law Enforcement had deposited on her desk earlier.

Merlin, how she hated it when people made it her problem that another couple of idiots had latched onto the regurgitating-toilet-trend... that one never seemed to get old.

#######################################################################################

Harry simply threw the cards down on the floor next to the bed, earning himself an admonitory look and a "You're going to pick that up later, not me" from Voldemort. Still, he saw no immediate need to take them back to Al's old room where he had found them. The Dark Lord had not been ecstatic about it, but after a short discussion he had agreed to play a few rounds of Exploding Snap with Harry, all of which Harry had won.

At the moment, Harry hardly thought twice about who he was so casually spending his time with. It could have been anyone else, Ron or Hermione... it would not have felt much different at all. Harry was certain that it would never cease to amaze him how natural this... relationship?... between Voldemort and him could be.

It was simply there, and they were both here, together, and to hell with it if this was out of line.

########################################################################################

"Hello, Ron," Dean Thomas greeted. He had glimpsed Ron in Diagon Alley, not a hard feat with his fiery hair standing out from the crowd, and caught up with him.

"Dean! Hi," said Ron, surprised. He had not seen Dean in a while, all he knew was that his former classmate had become rather successful as a wizarding artist. "What brings you here?"

"Actually, I just wanted to ask about Ginny," Dean said. He had never entirely stopped caring about his first girlfriend. Sure, it had only been a school crush, nothing life-changing, and he had quickly moved on from her, but he still undeniably cared. "Is she alright?"

"I suppose, given the circumstances... she'll be okay. So you heard?"

Dean nodded, and Ron continued, "Well, of course, I guess everyone heard. Major downside of marrying the Chosen One. Anyway, she's staying with Hermione and me for now."

"Can I invite you for an ice-cream or anything, we catch up and you tell me a bit more?" asked Dean hopefully, "I've heard a bit, but you know how it is... you never really know what to believe, and I'm really feeling bad for her."

"Well..." Ron hesitated. "Actually, I'm here on something work-related, but I guess it's not going to hurt anyone."

"Great," Dean said, "Fortescue's, or do you prefer something else?"

"Fortescue's sounds good."

#########################################################################################

"Sweetie-pie??" Lord Voldemort called in a ridiculous sing-song voice, "I'm waiting."

"Fuck you!" Harry yelled back from the kitchen.

"That hurts my feelings, sweetie-pie!"

"Oh, be quiet! That's not helping!"

At some point, Harry had brought some cold butterbeer for himself and the Dark Lord, and some time later they had replaced that with firewhiskey, and not a small amount of it.

"Here you go," Harry said as he swayed into the bedroom with fresh ice cubes and made to refill their glasses.

"Careful..." Voldemort warned, doubting Harry's capability not to spill anything, "Oh, give that to me, you brat, I'll do that before you create a mess."

Harry handed the bottle over and dropped back onto the bed.

"And now?" he asked.

"Now we get dressed and go out."

Harry mock-punched the dark wizard who indeed seemed hell-bent on getting on his nerves. Voldemort punched back, way harder than Harry had. Harry caught him by the wrist, refusing to let go and getting a hold of the other wrist as Voldemort tried to tear out of Harry's grip. The two wizards struggled, until Harry pinned Voldemort down and straddled him, still maintaining his grip on the dark wizard's bony wrists.

Harry deeply regretted that, as he knew from countless attempts, the Lord was not at all ticklish. It could have been so much more fun if he were... the situation was really calling for it. So instead, Harry just stayed immobile and stared at Voldemort, who in turn looked back up at him.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked Harry deridingly.

Harry shrugged, and lay himself down on top of the other wizard's chest, and purred, "You really make a nice pillow, actually, My Lord."

"You don't say. And how long are you planning to stay like this?"

"Dunno." Harry relaxed enough for Voldemort to take the chance and twist his wrists out of Harry's hands. Immediately he latched onto Harry's hair.

"Ouch!" Harry screamed, but the Lord did not stop pulling until Harry's head was so close to his that it would have been possible for them to kiss.

"Go outside with me, if you have nothing better to do," he demanded.

"Cut it out, will you? Anyway, even if I wanted to it would be pretty hard with you hanging on my hair like that, don't you think?"

"So if I leave your hair alone you will take me out?"

"No, dammit! Forget about it!"

Voldemort tore even harder in response and furiously smashed his mouth against Harry's, pouring his frustration and fury at this maddening state of confinement into the kiss.

Harry hardly reacted at first, still trying to loosen Voldemort's grip, to no avail. The dead wizard had twisted some of the black strands around his fingers and was holding onto them as though his existence depended on that. The younger man gave in and kissed back, although with less fervor than his counterpart.

"Harry," whispered Voldemort, pausing the kiss but not pulling away, cold breath ghosting over wet lips, "don't think that merely because I am forced to depend on you, that you can ever control me. You forget your place too often."

"And what is my place, according to you?" Harry whispered back, rising to the bait.

"You have duties toward me. You wanted me to be with you, and now you have to give me the things I need. Either that, or give me the freedom necessary for me to help myself."

"Stop bringing this crap up, and especially not when I'm drunk, I really don't have the nerve for that right now," Harry snarled, "And you forget that I can easily make you live in the basement again. I could take everything, absolutely everything away from you if I wanted to."

Voldemort bit down on Harry's lip and tore a piece of skin away. A storm of silent rage in his red eyes that were hardly more than an inch away from Harry's green ones, he spit the skin out and licked the blood from his lips. "You will never make true on that. You need me."

"I don't need you," Harry objected, "You're just a fucking millstone round my neck, certainly nothing I need."

"Really, Harry? And who else do you have but me?" scoffed the Lord, "You would do well to stay on my good side."

"Oh, of course, and once more you conveniently disregard the fact that you are the only goddamn reason I have no one else left."

"It is not that simple, Harry, darling. It never is. If you are in fact the one entirely in control here, as you keep telling yourself that you are, then blaming me for anything makes no sense at all."

"Just shut the fuck up." To enforce that, Harry resumed the kiss, smothering the other's words of protest. Voldemort caught Harry's lower lip between his teeth and sucked on the wound, then let go and turned his head away. For a moment, he looked past Harry with clouded, distant eyes, and then suddenly turned his attention back to the younger man and attacked his swollen lips again, every bit as violently as before. He wrapped his arms around Harry's back, and sent waves of searing pain into the Auror's body from his hands.

Seeing nothing but bright whiteness that was hurting his eyes, Harry needed a while until he could assemble his thoughts enough to make an effort to pry the dark wizard's arms off himself. When he finally managed, Voldemort seemed satisfied enough and halfway good-natured again. He pushed Harry to his side, sat up and watched him recover, trying to flatten the messy hair with one hand.

When Harry could also sit up, the Lord reached for the whiskey glasses and helped Harry drink his, as the black-haired man's hands were still shaking.

"Oh, sweetie-pie..." he said, grinning, and put an arm around Harry's shoulder.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Sweetie-pie..." he silently repeated the Lord's newest pet-name for him to himself. Then, loud, he asked, "I give you almost everything you ask for, if it's possible, anyway, so what are you even complaining about?"

"For example, and this is certainly not the only example I can think of... I asked you to bring me something goblin-made several times over the last years, and did you ever comply?" Voldemort dug his fingernails into Harry's shoulder to emphasize his point. "No, you did not."

"How am I supposed to do that? It's not like they're just handing that stuff out, and you will understand that refusing to tell me what the hell you need that for comes off as a little bit suspicious. Tell me why you think it's so important, who knows, maybe I'll even agree."

"I don't need to justify every little thing to you."

"Then don't complain if I don't get why you even want it... I'm not going so far out of my way to bring you something unless I know there's a point. For all I know, you're just trying to keep me busy with some useless extra-work."

"You could just trust me."

"I don't," Harry said shortly, "Deal."

"Then don't complain if I complain," the Lord threw Harry's words back at him.

Harry handed him his empty glass. "Can you just fill that up again, please? I need some more to be able to stand you."

"Don't tempt me to hurt you again, sweetie-pie," Voldemort hissed, but he complied and while he was at it, helped himself to more firewhiskey as well. Right now he also needed it to stand Harry... Harry, and the nagging fear in the back of his mind that this might never work out in time, that his existence might be forever lost.

As for talking openly to Harry... the younger man understood him exceptionally well, but this was something he would not understand, would without drastic necessity not be willingly do. Whether he was unable to grasp the absolute imperative, or whether to him for some unfathomable reason it did indeed not matter to him, the Lord did not know. It greatly saddened him, however, and made him feel more helpless than anything. This was a level on which his Harry was untouchable, entirely out of his reach... and he had no way to understand. Did not even want to understand, really. How could his Harry be so unmindful, so reckless? So utterly self-destructive without a care in the world?

It didn't matter, what mattered was that he himself knew for a fact that he needed this. They needed this, even if one of them could not see that. He could not force Harry to open his eyes, so he would have to be sensible for the two of them, and in some way or another, drag his Harry along.

########################################################################################

"Cho? Cho. Cho!"

The raven-haired beauty woke with a start, her husband's face inches from hers. "You're awake, Jules!" she squealed instantly and scrambled up.

"Are you okay?" asked Julius concernedly, even though he looked much worse than Cho felt.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine, but you were unconscious for so long... you scared me."

"Why, for how long was I unconscious? And where the hell are we?" He was slurring the words, obviously having a hard time speaking coherently.

"I don't know, I really don't know... there were these people in our house, and then the next thing I remember is waking up here... do you have any idea who they were?"

Julius' face scrunched up in thought and he let his head fall into his hands. "I... I don't think I remember that."

Cho held him. "What is the last thing you remember, then?"

"I'm not sure... I can't really think... sorry, my head just hurts so bad, give me a minute, okay?"

Cho frowned. "Lie back down, we're really not in a hurry, I think."

He did so, resting his head on her lap. A while later, he asked, "Is there any way out of here? Have you tried?"

"I tried, there is no way. Looks like we will just have to wait."

"Eh. Not good. What else do you know?"

"About what is going on here? As much as you do, nothing really. I thought... not that I can be sure, it's just a thought, couldn't this have something to do with the Veil of Death? Somebody wanting to keep us from investigating?"

Julius thought for a moment, tried to make some sense of the random fractions of thoughts in his aching, immobilized brain. He willed it to work, tried to find any memory responding to Cho's words. "There was something I wanted to tell you about... did I?"

"What?"

"Did I tell you anything?"

"Tell me what?"

"I don't know... I don't think I told you, but I'm not sure... I know I was going to tell you something."

"About the Veil? Do you know what happened to it?"

"I don't know. Sorry, Cho, I'm really trying to remember."

"That's alright. As long as we're okay..."

She gently stroked his hair. Julius knew that she didn't blame him, but that did not change that he was angry with himself, angry for being so slow, unable to remember anything useful. He had the distinct feeling there was something important, so close but still just out of his reach.

########################################################################################

"Sir? Excuse me, Sir, I'm an Auror. Sorry, I'm not doing this to bother you, but could you please just tell me what you are doing here? This is a crime scene."

The young man in question turned around, quickly assessing Lavender and giving her a disarming smile that reached his sparkling blue eyes. The first thing that came to her mind was that she was positively surprised. When she had noticed that somebody was sneaking around here, she had anticipated a lot of bad things.

"I'm sorry for intruding," he apologized, unfazed by her sudden appearance, "Of course I will explain myself, Miss...?"

"Brown. Lavender Brown." He did not seem particularly dangerous, and she was almost ready to believe that he had some kind of explanation, but she was slightly impatient to hear it.

"Miss Brown," he said smoothly, "My name is Johnny Davis. I am a friend of Julius and Cho. I have not seen them very much in a while, but when I heard that something happened to them I was terribly upset, and I simply had to come... I was trying to find anything that could help, you know? I know, maybe that was not such a good idea, but I just had to do something."

Lavender nodded. He did seem sincere... although she knew to always keep some room for doubts. In any case, he looked like he was barely old enough to be finished with school... hardly a criminal. Actually... she thought that if he weren't so young, he could really be her type. "We have already gone through the house, you can believe me when I say that there really is nothing."

"I thought so... I figured that perhaps since I know them personally I had better chances. You really have no idea either, do you?"

"No, sorry. I can see that this is hard for you, but is there perhaps anything you know about them that could matter? Even if it seems insignificant, sometimes the smallest things can make all the difference."

He considered that for a moment, then regretfully shook his head. "I know so many insignificant things about them... however, not a single one that I have reason to believe could be important."

Lavender had expected that. "In case anything still comes to your mind..."

"I will contact you at once," he finished for her.

"That is great. I have to ask you to identify yourself, though."

"No problem, Miss Brown." He took a while to search his pockets, and handed her his identification.

"Seems in order," Lavender said, handing it back, "No offense, Mr Davis, this is just normal routine."

"None taken. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, not right now, except please don't go looking around at crime scenes anymore, alright? This place is to be left unchanged, and you entering without permission alerted the wards. I'm not mad, but I did have to come for nothing, you know?"

"Alright, not doing anything like this again, I promise. I really am sorry for holding you up, it was not my intention to cause any inconveniences. "

"It was not a big deal."

"I know, but... it was a really silly thing to do, wasn't it?" Although he laughed lightly, he seemed melancholic.

"It was understandable," she told him with a smile, "By the way... are you related to Tracy Davis?"

"Oh, she is a cousin. Why, do you know her?"

"Not well, I just went to school with her. Sorry, I was merely wondering."

"That's alright. Have a nice evening, Miss Brown." He turned to leave.

She found herself staring at his retreating back, the black robes mingling with the shadows, contrasting with the shoulder-length blonde locks that almost seemed to catch and hold the few rays of light. Should she...? He was so young, though... Well, now or never, she thought. "Wait a second," she called him back, "actually, there is one thing you could do for me..."

"Yes?" he turned back to face her, standing in the shadows of the hallway. Lavender could make out a slightly mischievous grin on his partly overshadowed face.

"That would be entirely optional, though... there is a nice restaurant just down the road, and, well, I thought since it's about dinner time..."

"You're invited... Lavender."

########################################################################################

A/N: I'm interested, did anyone get the last scene? *drops anvil-sized hints*

Or in general, what I'm playing at, plot-wise...


	12. Chapter 12

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 12

The next day Lavender arrived late at work. She scanned the room immediately for the familiar black rat's nest. "Hey, Harry, where were you yesterday?"

"Felt like taking a day off. Is there anything I missed?"

"Not much..." Lavender leaned over Harry's desk and said in a hushed voice, "I looked around in the Department of Mysteries a bit... didn't really find much, nothing I could work with, anyway, but I still made notes. You've been there before, too, so I think we should go over those together, you know, to compare if anything changed. I haven't got much hope for that, but perhaps we will notice something."

"Yeah, sure. Worth a try in any case."

"At lunch break? We could go to some muggle restaurant where no one's gonna listen in."

"Fine with me."

Lavender flinched when she heard a loud cough behind her. Dawlish reached past her and dropped a piece of paper onto the desk.

"Go to that address," he said, "I'm not sure what's the matter there, apparently someone saw something through a window that they thought was a dead body. Check it out, the two of you."

######################################################################################

While Harry was gone, Voldemort continued to roam around the house and disrespect Harry's privacy, looking into every drawer, taking a good look at anything that looked even remotely interesting and reading all kinds of letters and notes. More than a few times he found things that he figured might belong to Ginny rather than Harry, so he collected them to get rid of later.

Especially the attic was full of such offending objects, seeing as Harry had left it out when going around the house and packing Ginny's belongings. There was even a large, dusty wardrobe with old clothes of hers. He decided to take them all downstairs. They would make a nice, warm fire later.

The most sickening thing he found was her wedding dress. Terrible... the little slut had wanted her dreamy white wedding, in her lovely lacy gown, and she had gotten that. Never mind, he had won that particular battle. And the dress was going to burn very well.

Also, there was a tiara. It looked rather valuable, but Voldemort was certain he had seen Ginny, wear it on some photographs of her wedding, so they were not going to keep that either. That mudblood Granger and the part-veela had also worn the same thing, he was almost certain now that he thought about it.

He was about to throw the tiara onto the rapidly growing pile with things to dispose of, but something held him back. The veela girl, Fleur had worn it on her wedding... that rang a bell. Meditatively, the dark wizard turned the tiara around in his hands. Harry had told him about that wedding.

It had been the day he had killed Scrimgeour and taken control of the Ministry. The wedding had been disrupted, and Potter and his friends had fled. Before that... the Lovegood girl had been there and wearing yellow robes that must really have looked greatly out of place, judging from the way Harry had vividly remembered and retold it years later. And that Quidditch player who had also competed in the Triwizard Tournament... Viktor Krum. And Harry had talked to Doge, Dumbledore's lovesick little puppy. To Doge, and some annoying Aunt Something. Myrtle? No, definitely not. Aunt Muriel, yes, that was it. And Fleur had been wearing Auntie Muriel's tiara, a sign of truce from Mrs Weasley.

Auntie Muriel's goblin-made tiara.

It was quite some time ago that Harry had told him this, but he thought that was what Harry had said. Of course, this might just be nothing but wishful thinking, he could be mistaken... and he was no expert on this, he would not know.

Just as well, however, he could be right. This could be, while certainly not final, at least a temporary solution. If he was right, then this could buy him a lot of time, time that he was going to need if he ever wanted a real chance to set things in stone.

He prayed, to no one in particular, that he was right.

########################################################################################

Lavender had a bad feeling when she read the name 'Davis' at the door.

Her feeling turned a great deal worse when she saw the bodies in the living room. She instinctively held onto Harry's sleeve. Harry was standing beside her, frozen in horror as she was. There were five of them, a whole family, and obviously they had been brutally slaughtered. Two children, a girl that she guessed was near school age, and a little boy of maybe four or five. The older boy was in his late teens, and the other two... likely the parents.

"My god..." she heard Harry mutter. She could only agree.

Were they related to Johnny? Closely, even? For his sake, she really hoped not, but if it were so, did he already know something had happened to them? She had spent a wonderful evening with the young man, and she had found she genuinely liked him. She had even almost forgotten about his age... he was young, yes, but he had seemed older, somehow, a lot more mature and sophisticated than she would have expected a man his age... well, a boy, really... to be. However, he had already been crushed at his friends' disappearance, how would he feel if he also lost several family members within a matter of days from the last disastrous blow?

Harry nudged her shoulder, and she snapped out of it. They had work to do.

#########################################################################################

Lord Voldemort had temporarily abandoned his exploration of the attic, and instead gone downstairs and picked up a heavy stack of notes that he had made thorough the years. There were no direct instructions to what he had in mind in any book that he knew of, but he had gathered enough snippets of information to recreate the process himself. At least he thought that what he had come up with had the potential to work, but of course he would only find that out without a doubt if he tried.

He had everything he needed for that now. The tiara and a lot of unsupervised time and unhindered access to Harry's potions cabinet.

And the best thing... Harry was going to eat whatever he prepared for him.

#########################################################################################

"Harry Potter? Surely not," said Elena, "Not this pest again... is there even any major trouble that he is not somehow involved in?"

"He has quite a reputation, that one..." Nikolaj mused, "but really, if you think about it, what has he done, anyway? I haven't been there, of course, but it does seem to me like he was mostly very lucky."

"He was lucky several times in a row, though," Karina said, "Not that I have any doubts... I do not see why we should not win in the end, but I do have to admit I am slightly worried he might get lucky again somehow. He could cause quite some trouble."

"Harry Potter, or anyone else, I really don't care," said Antonia haughtily, "We will persist until we are exactly where we want to be, and no little hero, lucky or not, will be standing in our way for long. We have fallen before, but see how we have risen from the ashes!"

"Hear, hear," agreed Nikolaj with a lopsided smile.

"I still don't understand how Potter fits into this, though," Elena wondered, "What is he to us, anyway?"

She winced and turned around when she unexpectedly heard somebody speak from right behind her. She had not noticed him entering.

"He has something that should rightfully be mine, nothing more and nothing less."

#########################################################################################

"What kind of restaurant would you like to go to?" Harry asked later as he and Lavender were back in London.

"No, I'll just order something to drink, anyway. I don't really feel like eating after this."

"Me neither," Harry agreed. They ended up just walking into the next-best reasonably empty Starbucks they came across.

When they were sitting at a corner table far away from the entrance, neither knew what to say, or even wanted to say anything, the images they had been confronted with in the Davis' house still fresh on their mind.

Upon closer look at the bodies, it looked like the adults had been tortured before they died, and strangely enough, as if the teen had been the one to stab the children to death. Possibly under an Imperius Curse, they suspected. After all, the boy and his parents had obviously been killed somebody else who must have used magic.

The most disconcerting fact, however, was that the teenage boy's name was Johnny Davis. And he had definitely not been the same person that Lavender had met the day before. They had not been able to determine the exact time of death at the spot, but it was clear that last night he had already been dead for a while.

"I don't understand this..." Lavender ended the silence, "If this dead guy was the real Johnny, then who was that yesterday? He could identify himself well enough... and why would he have pretended to be somebody else?"

"You said that you caught him sneaking around in Cho's house, right? Seems like a pretty good reason to lie."

"Yes, of course... but you don't normally go around with someone else's papers on you, do you? I was quite sure they were official, charmed Ministry emblem and all. And the photo on his identification definitely looked like him, not that boy we found. They don't even look alike."

"It's not too hard to change a photo... you have to get it changed at the Ministry every few years, anyway. I think it would be harder to change the name... Your new friend might have taken it from the dead boy."

"Yeah... I just don't get why he would do that, though."

"Couldn't he have been the one who killed them?"

"Theoretically, I suppose. I really don't think so, though... I just can't see that, he's not a bad guy."

"You've really taken a liking to that guy, haven't you?"

"Kinda, yes, but that doesn't mean I'm being partial... not very much, anyway. I'm not forgetting I hardly know him, but he seriously did seem alright."

"Hm. You gotta admit it seems a bit more than weird, though."

"It does," Lavender agreed darkly, biting her lip. She knew that, but she still hoped there was some sort of harmless explanation... a simple misunderstanding, perhaps... everything was so unclear. "Still... he's not even twenty, he surely wouldn't have singlehandedly killed an entire family. I think."

"No one said that a single person is responsible for that. I don't think so either, but I do believe that guy you met is somehow involved in the whole thing. Whatever reason he may have had to lie about his identity, the specific choice can hardly be a coincidence."

"Oh, what crap," groaned Lavender, "I meet a nice person, and the next day I find out they're potentially a murderer." She forced the corners of her mouth into what was supposed to be a light-hearted grin, but turned out as more of a grimace.

"And you don't know anything else about him, perhaps even where he lives or so?"

"No, but he knows where I live."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. So let us really hope the murderous-psycho-theory is wrong."

Murderous psychos in your home aren't necessarily a bad thing, was the thought that shot through Harry's head at once. He suppressed a grin that would have come across as rather inappropriate.

Instead, he chose to say, "Might not be quite that bad... just sorta fishy."

Another minute of silence. Harry played with the spoon in his coffee, and watched Lavender's distraught expression turn gradually into firm determination.

"Whatever, I'm going to get to the bottom of this," she stated.

Harry nodded. "And I will help."

#########################################################################################

"I don't want to eat canned chicken soup every day, though," Harry told Voldemort later, "I don't need you for that."

The dark wizard scowled. "Another reminder, I am not your house-elf. I can make you something better whenever I have the time, but since today I had other things to do, you will have to make do."

Harry snorted. "You couldn't have made anything better if you'd wanted to."

"Be glad I didn't bother to try, then."

"What else did you have to do, anyway? I thought you were constantly bored here."

"Trust me, I am."

"Oh, whatever... I'm just tired now."

"My Harry is not in a good mood..." Voldemort cocked his head and observed Harry with exaggeratedly wide eyes. "Why could that be?"

Harry sighed. "Sorry, had a pretty long day 's all... just wanna go to bed soon."

"Tell me?" If possible, the red eyes opened even wider.

Harry involuntarily laughed. "Let's go to bed first... we can still talk a little then."

They went upstairs together. Harry was indeed very exhausted from the events of the day, and to his relief, the Dark Lord acted rather considerate, at least for his standards. He ceaselessly lingered around Harry, though, followed him into the bathroom and kept watching him obsessively. Harry was too tired to complain, so he tolerated it.

As soon as Harry laid down, long skeletal arms snaked around him and held him protectively. He tried to keep his eyes open, but the lids felt so heavy... he made a small noise that he hoped the Lord would correctly interpret as 'talk to you later, lemme sleep', and his eyes fell shut.

#########################################################################################

Harry opened his eyes after what seemed like only a moment later, but had in fact been several hours of deep, dreamless sleep.

"Good morning," said Voldemort, sensing the change in Harry's consciousness at once. He was still holding Harry, had been doing so and focusing on the feel of the warm, living body in his arms all night long. Except for the regular rising and sinking of Harry's chest, neither of them had moved an inch.

"Mmmm," was Harry's only answer. He pulled Voldemort's arms tighter around him.

"Slept well?"

"Mmmm."

"Harry?"

"Mmmm?"

"You are awake, right?"

"Mmmm."

Voldemort abandoned his attempts to talk normally, and waited a while for Harry to fully wake up.

"Lavender and I found a family dead in their house yesterday," Harry said finally.

When Voldemort said nothing in response, obviously expecting Harry to say something more, the Auror said, "It was really strange. We think it might be connected to whatever happened to Cho and her husband."

"Why do you think so?" asked Voldemort.

"Apparently Lavender caught somebody in their house who pretended to be one of the people who had died."

"I see."

"God, I wish someone else had found them, really... I mean, I love my job and all, but you can't imagine how much crap we had to take notes on and then summarize all that for the department... hell of a lot of work."

"I do believe I can roughly imagine that."

"Thanks," said Harry.

"For what?" asked Voldemort, slightly confused.

Harry had to think about that himself before he replied, "Everything. Being here... I don't know, just thank you. I mean, I still haven't forgiven you for losing me Ginny, and I don't think I can anytime soon, although I know there's no point going on about it all the time... anyway, you're at least making an effort to... you know, be there instead of her, or I think that is what you're doing, in your own way. So, you know... thanks."

"Finally you got it, my Harry," the dark wizard said, "Keep appreciating my efforts, and we have no problem at all. Time to get up, now, don't you think?"

"Ugh... don't wanna..." Harry grumbled.

"Fine with me."

"I have to go to work, don't I?"

"You could always stay."

Harry got up and dressed, though, even though he was feeling very unmotivated and would indeed have preferred to stay right where he was.

"Can I come with you?" asked Voldemort as he followed Harry downstairs.

Harry pretended not to have heard. "I need a really strong cup of coffee now, what about you?"

"Sure. Can I come with you? There's more than enough polyjuice potion upstairs, you'd only need to get some muggle's hair." The dark wizard looked out of the window and pointed at a slightly ragged-looking muggle with dirty-blond dreadlocks. "There, I like that one. Run after him quick and get some hair, Harry."

"Oh, honestly!"

"Come on, sweetie-pie. It could be so much fun. You know you want to."

Harry took a fork that was lying by the sink and stabbed with it at Voldemort.

"Hey!"

"You deserved it. And put your bottom lip away, will you? For Merlin's sake, you're annoying me..."

"It is the best way of entertainment I have. Now, if I had something else to do, like going with you..."

Harry decided not to respond, and turned his full attention to his life-saving coffee.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"At least come back earlier than yesterday, if you are already expecting me to hang around this dull place on my own all day."

"If I can... can't promise you that. Might still be a lot of work to do."

"I'm sure that if you wanted to, you could always push off a great part of that onto someone else."

"Seriously... if I were staying here with you twenty-four-seven, you wouldn't be too pleased about that either."

"Indeed, that would be somewhat overkill. My main concern is actually whether you even come back every day. You should not be running around looking for trouble, at least not without me there."

Harry stared at Voldemort, taken aback. "You know me, I always end up alright."

"Exactly that is why I am worried. I know you, Harry. You're attracted to trouble like a moth to the flame. I often think that the best thing to do would be to tie you to the bed for your own sake, but then again, I would trust you to still find some way to cause a disaster."

"As if you would care if you needed me any less."

"Of course, it is a fact that I need you. And as long as that is the case, I am the last person in the world to wish you harm. Which is why you have every reason to listen to me, Harry."

"That's very... well, I'm not sure if that falls under 'nice of you', but hey, considering that you are you, this is the best I can get... almost touching, really," Harry said, half teasing the other wizard, and half quite serious.

The red eyes pierced him from across the kitchen table for minutes, hardly even blinking. Harry shifted uncomfortably. Then the Lord grinned and reached out to ruffle Harry's hair.

"Honestly, take care of yourself, though."

#########################################################################################


	13. Chapter 13

To ann, first off thanks for your nice review. Voldemort is indeed worried, although mostly about himself. His hopes of immortality are getting stronger, and he doesn't want Harry to mess his plans up by dying any time soon. Why do you think the story is almost over, though? There is still a long, long way to go.

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Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 13

Dean was slightly nervous, standing at Ron's front door and waiting for it to open. He had not seen Ginny in ages, and now Ron had asked him to take her out. Just for a casual meeting between old friends, of course, no pressure. Merely to make sure Ginny got around other people and distract her. As much as Ron had been against the relationship he and Ginny had had back in school, right now it seemed to Dean as if Ron indeed wished for them to get together. Not that Dean minded much... he was just going to go along with it and see how it turned out. Maybe this really was not a bad idea at all, who knew?

In any case, after giving the matter some thought he had dressed leisurely in muggle clothes and brought a bouquet of marguerites and long green leaves. Polite, but not particularly romantic. This way, Ginny would have all possibilities to choose from how she wanted to view this date. Dean did suppose that right after such a long relationship coming to a nasty end, she would prefer to not to feel constrained, so if they did simply talk as friends, that would be perfectly alright, although he thought that he might not be averse to anything beyond that.

Finally, Ginny opened the door. She still looked pretty, Dean noted, although despite that she was wearing a little make-up her skin looked ashen and he could make out dark rings under her eyes.

They stood there for a moment, both avoiding looking directly into each other's eyes, then Dean said, "Hi Ginny... it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Hi Dean. Yeah, glad to see you, though. Um... are those flowers for me?"

"Oh - yeah, I almost forgot, here, for you."

"Thank you, they're very pretty. I'll just put them into a vase, wanna come in for so long?"

"Sure, thanks." Dean followed Ginny into the kitchen, where she begun to search the drawers for some kind of vase. "Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"At Luna's. They've taken Lily along, too. My little daughter, you know."

"Oh, yes. How many children do you have again?"

"Three, two boys and a girl. Do you have any?"

"No."

"Why not, did you not want any?"

"I'm not sure, it just never happened. I never really settled down or anything either, comes with my job."

"You make portraits, don't you? How does that keep you from settling down?"

"I travel a lot. See, I get many requests from outside the country, so that doesn't make it easier to become serious enough in a relationship to get married and have kids and all that."

"I see," said Ginny, "doesn't that ever frustrate you, though?"

"Yeah, actually. In the beginning, it was really cool this way, but after some years of constant changes you do start to see the disadvantages."

Ginny had found a round vase in the back of a bottom drawer. She pulled it out and filled it with water. "You're missing out on a lot, I guess. Then again, you should not settle on anything too quickly... or on anyone." She cut the ends of the stems with unnecessary force. "So it's reasonable of you not to rush into a serious relationship with anyone while you can't actually take your time to get to know them first."

Dean was certain that she was really talking about herself and Harry now. He didn't ask, though. If there was anything she wanted to talk about, then of course he would listen, but after what Ron told him he doubted that she felt much like going over the topic of her ruined marriage.

Ginny was done, and put the flowers on the table. "Shall we go?"

#########################################################################################

A few mainly eventless days had passed since the evening that Lavender had spent with the strange boy, and she was still turning the details of it over in her mind again and again. Going out had been her idea. If she had not suggested it he would simply have left, so he could not have been following any hidden intention in getting to know her. Still, he had asked her a lot of questions about herself, her work... either out of genuine curiosity, or to avoid having to talk about himself.

He had also shown particular interest in Harry, but then again, almost everyone did that. And in the investigation on the Rookwoods' disappearance, which at the time had not seemed strange to her at all, considering she had believed him to be a concerned friend. Now, however...

When they had questioned the Davis' remaining family and friends, she had also asked about the blonde boy and even showed them a memory of him, to no avail. No one seemed to know him.

Lavender tried very hard to make sense of this, but it remained a complete mystery.

She had already talked to the people who had to do with Cho and Julian, and she doubted she would have any more success asking them about it, but she decided to try, anyway.

##########################################################################################

The Lord really did not want to evaluate his chances to get Harry to do what he needed him to. He knew that without a great deal of luck, it might not be possible.

The one good thing was that now, while the necessity was naturally still there, it was not quite as pressuring as it had been before. Unless Harry found a way to get himself killed before the problem was entirely out of the way, that was.

Then again... perhaps a threat to Harry's life would be exactly what was needed, but that was risky. If only he could be with the younger man at all times, then even without being allowed to carry a wand himself, he would at least be able to guide Harry into the right direction. If only Harry trusted him more instead of questioning his every move... While he did respect his lover for keeping his guard up in spite of how close they had become, it was admittedly not very practical.

He filled some of the essence that he had extracted into a small flask and corked it. Holding it against the light, he admired the opaque dark red color and viscous texture of the unmeasurably valuable essence. Perfect.

##########################################################################################

"I'm sure they're okay, Mrs Chang, don't worry," Lavender said soothingly, patting the elderly woman on the back. Even though there were no news on Cho's or her husband's whereabouts, her mother had been very happy that Lavender had dropped by, and immediately invited her in, offering ginger tea and biscuits. Mid-conversation, the distraught mother had burst into tears. "We are doing everything to find them, and there really is no reason to believe that they are not okay."

"There was blood in the house!" Mrs Chang cried into her hands.

"Not enough for anyone to die from the loss," Lavender told her again, doubting the next second whether talking about anyone dying was at all such a tactful move in this situation.

Mrs Chang cried harder, and clung to Lavender for support. Lavender let her cry into her shoulder for as long as she needed to.

When the old lady had somewhat regained composure, shook her loose grey hair out of her face and wiped her eyes dry, she hiccuped, "Let me see that memory, then."

Lavender pulled a small vial out of her handbag, poured it into a fruit bowl and waited until Mrs Chang was finished viewing it.

The young Auror was taken aback at the deathly pale shade that the old lady's face had turned. "They are dead," she said in a horrified whisper, strong conviction in her voice.

"What?!" Lavender asked, unsettled, "Why do you think so, do you know that boy?"

"No," Mrs Chang whispered in the same alarming tone, "But..." Instead of finishing the sentence, she hurried, as fast as an infirm woman like her could, over to the large bookshelf covering an entire wall.

"What are you doing?" asked Lavender, getting to her feet and standing awkwardly around as Mrs Chang began to look for something, pulling out some of the books and carelessly throwing them onto the floor.

Finally Cho's mother seemed to have found what she was looking for. She flipped through one of the books, found the right page, hobbled back to the younger woman and shoved the open book under her nose.

Lavender stared at the page and blanched.

##########################################################################################

When Harry came home, there was already a pot full of tomato soup lightly boiling on the stove. He would not have thought that Voldemort would be so cooperative, but the last days he had been doing chores without complaint and in general acting rather uncomplicated. Apart from continuing to watch Harry's every move while he was at home, anyway. That was slowly getting irritating and made Harry look back with longing on the good old times when he could simply shut the door in the basement behind him and have his peace.

As he could have predicted, the dark wizard appeared as soon as Harry was a few steps into the hall.

"Good evening, my dear," he said, leering eerily at Harry.

"Hey," said Harry and hung his coat away.

"Dinner's ready."

"I've noticed, thanks."

"So, did anything worth relaying to me happen today?" Voldemort asked when Harry had sat down with his bowl of soup.

"Er, not really. Work sucks." Harry took a spoonful of the hot soup. "Wow, this tastes totally amazing... can you make this more often? I don't know how you did that, but it's much better than anything else I've had of your cooking so far."

"Certainly, my dearest pumpkin," Voldemort drawled, a triumphant glint in his eyes that was not only caused by Harry's praise of his new-found cooking skills.

"Oh, so I'm pumpkin now, eh?"

"Well, Halloween is drawing nearer..." the dark wizard said with a lipless grin.

"True. Feel like carving out pumpkins?"

"My one true pumpkin, as in you, yes. Any other ones, no."

Harry snorted with amusement and had to spit a mouthful of soup back into the bowl.

"That was nasty," Voldemort observed.

"Sorry."

"We could go trick-or-treating, though."

"Yeah, you wouldn't even need to dress up at all. It's just still not going to happen."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty pretty please?"

Harry picked up his full glass of water and dumped the contents at Voldemort who reacted by looking the other way and demonstratively sulking.

"Yay, does that mean you'll stop staring at me all the time?" Harry cheered.

"No, it does not. You could accomplish that, however, by taking me outside."

By some mercy from the heavens above, or anything equally wonderful, the doorbell rang at exactly this moment and spared Harry from the Dark Lord's current favorite issue.

"Go hide," Harry hissed.

As soon as Voldemort had disappeared up the stairs, Harry opened the door. Ron was there.

"Hey," said Harry, "What a nice surprise. Is anything the matter?"

"Um, no, I was just around and I thought I'd drop by..."

"That's cool. Wanna come in?"

"Yeah, thanks." Ron followed Harry into the living room and sat down on the angled leather couch. Harry went to fetch them some butterbeer, put the second glass on the kitchen table away and joined Ron on the couch.

"Cheers."

"Cheers."

"So, how are you?" Harry wanted to know, "And how's Ginny?"

"Me, I'm fine," Ron told him, "And as for Ginny... well, I guess you're aware that she was pretty crushed, she'll still need some time to get over you... but she's getting better, I think. She even went out with Dean twice."

"Dean?" Harry wondered, "Dean Thomas, you mean?"

"Yep, that one. I hope you don't mind... well, no offense, but you really don't have any right to object."

"Why would I mind? I really do want her to be happy... only, with me that wouldn't have worked."

"Yeah... you know, I am kinda angry at you for cheating on my sister, you'll have to cut me some slack for that..." Ron paused to take a large gulp from the bottle he was holding, "but I guess you never intended to hurt her, and honestly, it is for the best that you came clean and split."

"I'm glad you see it that way... you don't know what that means to me, Ron. I really did try to fix things, though," Harry assured, "For a long time. It is just... we were only living a lie in the end, you know?"

Ron nodded thoughtfully. "Shit happens," he concluded the subject.

There was a hollow clank coming from the direction of the hall. Both men turned their heads to the door.

"What was that?" asked Ron, "Is there anyone there?"

"No, just leave it, that was nothing," Harry said quickly, hoping that Ron would not pursue the matter.

"Oookay." Ron sounded doubtful, but to Harry's relief settled on shrugging it off. "Anyway, have I told you yet? I got a muggle motorcycle."

"You did?"

"Yes. Hermione doesn't like it much, but seriously, if you're a bit more relaxed than she is, it's awesome. You should try sometime, it is like you're sorta flying on the ground."

"Take me for a ride sometime, will you?"

"Yeah, I'd absolutely -" Ron stopped mid-sentence and listened. "Seriously, there must be something causing these noises..."

"Ignore that. Just ignore it."

"Oh..." Ron regarded Harry with wide eyes, arriving at a false, although not very far-off conclusion. "You were having a date, weren't you? There's a woman over."

"No..."

"You could have said so, Harry. You can see anyone you like, I'll just come back another time, okay?" He got up and walked to the door. Harry would have held him back if he had had any idea what else to tell Ron.

"See you at work," Ron said, "Or meet up again soon... just please don't come over to my place, you know, cause of Ginny. I don't know how she'd react to seeing you again so soon."

"No problem. Goodbye, Ron."

Ron winked. "Have a nice evening with your secret visitor."

##########################################################################################

"What the hell were you doing while I was talking to Ron?" Harry snubbed his lover later when he found him already waiting in the bedroom.

"Me?" Voldemort acted innocently. "I was merely waiting for him to leave, my sweetie-pie."

"I should think that is possible to do more quietly. Were you lurking around at the door and listening in or what?"

"I do not know what you are talking about."

"Right, I believe you... you were up here all the time, of course."

"Exactly."

"Yeah..."

"How are you feeling?" Voldemort asked expectantly.

"Er - good, I'm fine," Harry said, a little bit confused by the randomness of the inquiry, "Why?"

"No reason." The Lord crawled over and tugged on Harry's shirt to make him come onto the bed. Harry complied, and immediately found himself thrown on his back, a cold tongue on his neck and icy hands all over him, creeping under his shirt and sliding over his chest.

"I have to have you, right now," hissed Voldemort against the skin below Harry's ear.

Harry shuddered, and the cold mouth captured his and the movements of the hands on his skin turned more forceful, went further downward and unclasped his jeans.

"Kneel," said the Lord, getting off of Harry to let him move. While Harry got on his knees, he pulled down Harry's jeans, and also the boxers he was wearing himself, not seeing it necessary to remove any further clothing. He just about prepared his lover before entering him without further ado.

It was somewhat painful at first, but Harry bore with it, focusing more on how incredibly satisfying it felt to have the Lord so impatiently needy for him, and the sensation of the sharp-nailed fingertips burying themselves in the flesh of Harry's sides.

The lovemaking was rushed, their bodies uniting in harsh, frantic thrusts, and when it was over, the Lord simply went back to his own side of the bed without as much as giving Harry a kiss.

"Are you working tomorrow?" he asked calmly.

"I think so..." said Harry, trying to imitate Voldemort's unfazed tone of voice, although he could not quite suppress the breathiness in his, "I don't really have to, but I guess I will."

"Don't."

"I'll decide that in the morning, okay?"

"Ah, alright... Goodnight, then, my dear."

"Night."

#########################################################################################

Harry had just been falling into sleep when the doorbell rang a second time this night, non-stop and unmistakably urgent.

Voldemort huffed in annoyance and, being closer to the window, scrambled up to look outside.

"Is it Ron again?" groaned Harry sleepily.

"No, some woman."

Harry also went over to look outside. "That's Lavender."

The dark wizard raised his eyebrows. "Your colleague? What does she want from you at this time of night?"

Harry shrugged. "Good question, next one."

Seeing as Lavender was still pressing the bell, and nothing was indicating that she was intending to stop anytime soon, he decided to go and let her in. At least he was still fully dressed, even if he supposed he must look rather crumpled.

"Wait here for me," he told Voldemort before he took a lamp and went downstairs, notwithstanding that he knew the dark wizard was bound to follow him as soon as he could without being seen.

"Hey Lavender, what is it?" he asked as he opened the door.

The scar-faced woman pushed past him without greeting or apology.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." she muttered under her breath, "Fuck, fuck..."

"Lavender?" Harry asked, now concerned, "Are you okay?"

She shook her head, continuing her mutterings. "Turn the light on," she demanded.

Harry pulled her into the kitchen, turned the light on and pushed Lavender into a chair. Lavender stared at the half-empty bottle of firewhiskey on the counter and reached her hand out. Harry understood, and handed it to her. After she had taken a large gulp straight from the bottle, she breathed in and out a couple of times and lit herself a cigarette with shaking fingers.

"What's the matter?" Harry asked again, "Did anything happen? Tell me."

The young woman needed another few seconds before she said, "How could this happen? I don't understand, how...?" Her voice failed her, and instead she pulled out a book and handed it to Harry.

He looked at the cover in bewilderment. "I know that book is awful, but what are you on about?"

Lavender took another deep breath, and began to explain.

##########################################################################################


	14. Chapter 14

To EIEN07, many thanks for your charming words, at least I know now that you like it. XD Hm, their relationship is OOC on its own, but I do hope that what I make of it seems halfway realistic. So really, thanks. And nope, the book has not really anything to do with Tom, but this chapter will make that clear.

To Ann, sorry about my choice of ending, but yes, I had to do that. ^_^ My mean streak shining through, you know?

Here's your answer, then.

###########################################################################################

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 14

"You're not going to get involved in this," Voldemort told Harry in a hushed, but resolute voice, stepping out from behind a curtain as soon as Harry had closed the living room door behind Lavender. He did not even bother to pretend not to have listened in this time.

"Too bad you can't tell me what to do," Harry automatically whispered back and turned to walk up the stairs. He had not even thought about whatever part he was going to take in this newest issue, but he was certainly not going to take orders from a dead Dark Lord.

Voldemort blocked his way. His eyes had that dangerous gleam in them again. "Harry," he hissed threateningly, "I will not let you..."

"Shut up," interrupted his lover, "I didn't say I was going to do anything, I don't know what to do myself right now, anyway. Maybe I will get involved, and maybe I'll do something stupid and get myself killed, and maybe I won't. In any case, that is my decision and there's nothing you can do to influence that, so just get out of my way now and come upstairs. I'd hate it if Lavender saw you and I would have to kill you all over again."

He pushed the slight wizard out of the way and went back to bed. Voldemort followed in reproachful silence.

##########################################################################################

She had come dangerously close to developing a little crush on a mass murderer, Lavender reflected. Nothing major, but the idea was nevertheless disturbing.

She was slumping on Harry's living room couch with a woolen blanket, clutching to the bottle of firewhiskey that she had taken with her from the kitchen. Mrs Chang's copy of 'The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore' was lying on the low couch table, continuing to draw her attention to it even in the dim light, mocking her.

Her instincts had failed her, convinced as she had been of her latest acquaintance's integrity and good will.

Then again, there was no way she could have known the likable boy she had met was a very much alive Gellert Grindelwald. How was this possible, though? What the hell was going on?

At least Harry had understood that at the moment she did not feel safe in her own home and had allowed her to stay.

##########################################################################################

Harry did not find sleep that night. Disregarding the fact that the Lord was still sulking, he pulled the thin wizard into his arms and buried his face in the nape of his neck. The cool skin against his forehead and almost imperceptible smell of death had a calming effect on him that was unequaled by anything else.

"I know you're only concerned, and you might have a point sometimes, but leave it to me, okay?" he muttered gently.

"Fine," agreed Voldemort hesitatingly, "However, you should heed my advice at least when even you think that I might be right... you tend to act against me by principle, not by reason, even now."

"Might be... I can't help that sometimes, you know."

"Yes, I know."

They stopped talking for a while, until Harry asked, "So... since I don't need to tell you anymore what Lavender said, do you have any idea how it could be that Grindelwald is not dead? I thought you had killed him."

"I thought so, too... I did wonder why he was so unfazed about it, did not even make a move to stop me."

"So what could he have done, then? Made Horcruxes, too?"

"Most likely."

"God, that really is an irksome trend."

Harry was close enough to feel the dark wizard smirk. "It is a very prudent trend to follow, though."

"Not my cup of tea," Harry replied.

"Why not?"

"Hm... perhaps because you'd have to kill somebody to create one?"

"And if you had to kill somebody, anyway? To defend yourself? Creating a Horcrux would not make them any more dead, if anything it would give their death additional purpose."

"You are really not the kind of person I desire to have an argument on ethics with in the middle of the night," Harry told him dryly.

"Eh? Then tell me, Harry, what do you desire to do with a person like myself in the middle of the night instead?" the Lord asked suggestively, twisting himself around in Harry's embrace.

"Not now, Lavender is downstairs!"

"So what?"

##########################################################################################

Dean brought Ginny to the door. "Goodnight, Gin," he said awkwardly, not sure whether to turn to leave or not.

This was already their fourth date now. Dean supposed that this could indeed be seen as a real date now, certainly more than a mere get-together between two old friends. Had it been another woman, he would already have kissed her, perhaps even more than that if the circumstances allowed it, but since Ginny and Harry's breakup was still so recent, he did not want to instigate anything that might end up making her feel worse.

His pondering was cut short when Ginny closed the distance between them.

Crouched low in the shadows of some bushes just outside the garden gate, Antonia was watching the red-headed woman kiss her dark-skinned escort who was obviously quite enamored with her. She felt a little contempt at how quickly this woman had apparently given up and forgotten about her lawfully wedded husband. Even though she did not know what had gone on between them, she doubted it justified this kind of behavior. And that called itself a pureblood... She shook her head, wondering what was wrong with the world. In any case she just hoped for the sake of the plan that at least Harry had more sense of duty left towards his wife.

#########################################################################################

"The thing that I find the most disquieting..." began Voldemort who was lying draped across Harry's chest. He caught the alert green eyes that were reflecting the light of a streetlamp outside the window before he continued to speak. "You put the Elder Wand back into Dumbledore's tomb, did you not?"

Harry startled. "Damn... I did, I hadn't thought about... Grindelwald could take it back from there!"

"If he has not done so already."

"You think he has?"

"He would have to be a fool not to."

"I'll have to check that first thing tomorrow... but even if he has it, I'm still its master."

"That is precisely what is bothering me about this whole thing. You're on the list."

"The list?"

"Of people to kill, idiot."

"Oh. Yeah, that list... don't worry, that is like a red line through my whole life, I'm used to it by now."

"I warn you, Harry..."

"Don't do anything stupid, yes, yes, I know."

"And yet you keep ignoring it. Don't you agree that now would be a good time to take me up on my offer to accompany you when you go out?"

"No, I do not think so."

"Why not? I could protect you. Failing to guard you would be failing to guard myself, so you really need not worry."

"No."

"And this is another one of those cases where I am right, and you object merely because it is me."

"Well what can I say? You know me. And I am still not about to let you anywhere near the poor, unsuspecting public. Anyway, I can take care of myself, I've always gotten out of everything okay, have I not?"

"Foolish child."

##########################################################################################

Julius banged on the door again, then threw himself against it with all his weight. The abrupt impact was too much. Sharp pain reared up inside his head again, and he slumped down against the door and pressed his fingers against his temples.

"Leave it, hun," Cho told him, sitting in a corner of the room, "There's no point, no one's gonna come."

"Someone must at least be there, though," Julius answered back, "If they wanted to lock us up in here forever they might just as well stop giving us anything, they could simply eave us here to starve. They're not doing that, so I take it they have something in mind with us."

"Yes, but making a racket is hardly going to do any good," Cho groaned, "Just come back over here."

Glaring daggers at the door that would not open, Julius stumbled into the middle of the room and dropped himself down onto the floor next to the plate with food. He took some grapes and rearranged them to form the word 'BED'.

"What are you doing?" asked Cho from her corner.

"I don't know about you, but I'm hurting all over from sleeping on this godforsaken floor, and seeing as they only ever seem to come when both of us are asleep, not even when we are pretending to be, I'm letting them know we'd like a bed."

"Fat chance," sighed Cho.

##########################################################################################

True to his word the first thing that Harry did in the morning was to go to Hogwarts with Lavender. To avoid causing unnecessary disquiet, they used the tunnel from Hogsmeade to the Whomping Willow instead of the main gates.

Albus Dumbledore could as well have been sleeping, if not for the bloodless color of his skin. He looked peaceful, and exactly like Harry remembered him with the spells on his body preventing decay.

Lifeless, of course, but somehow much less so than Voldemort had been before Harry had called his consciousness back into his dead body. Not as much of an empty shell as the Dark Lord had been... an echo of the presence of the greatest wizard that Harry had ever known still seemed to linger here.

The wand was gone.

"Fuck," said Lavender again, voicing Harry's thoughts in a nutshell. "We'll have to inform the Minister, and quick."

##########################################################################################

Percy rested his head on his desk, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Great, just great.

After seeing the memory that Lavender had showed him, he was convinced that she and Harry had drawn the right conclusions... the theft of the Veil of Death started to make some sense now, too. Perhaps he had made a mistake in not pressuring on investigation on a larger scale right away, but he doubted that would have done much good, anyway.

He hoped that this whole problem would go by without greater impact on Britain... the country had had just about enough time to mostly recover from the last war. They really could not use another one.

As it was, the public did not need to know, at least not yet. At this stage of development that could easily do more damage than good.

##########################################################################################

"Harry?" Lavender asked after they had left Percy's office.

"Yes?"

"I'm wondering... I can still not stay at my apartment, so perhaps..." She fidgeted around with her sleeves while trying to find the right words to ask this favor while not being too forward.

"You want to know if you can stay at my house?"

"Yes. It's okay if not, I don't want to force myself on you... I think I would feel safest there, though."

That is because you're completely oblivious that there is another occupant there, namely Lord Voldemort, Harry thought to himself. "I'd really like to let you stay, but there is something of a problem with that."

"What problem?" asked Lavender curiously.

"Can't explain. Anyhow, it would be really difficult..."

"Can you think about it, maybe? Otherwise I'll get myself a hotel room, that's no matter... I'd just prefer your house, no hotel room would be anywhere near as safely guarded."

"I'll see what I can do... you can stay for another night in any case... only please come late, after ten perhaps. I have to do something first that I need to be alone for."

Lavender still seemed rather curious, but luckily refrained from questioning Harry on what it was that he had to be alone to do.

"Okay, fine. I guess I can stay here until then. Are you coming with me to get some things from my place?"

"Sure."

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

##########################################################################################

Voldemort had made the same tomato soup for Harry again that Harry had loved so much yesterday.

"Thank you," Harry said.

The dark wizard nodded. "So, news?" he asked, straight to the point.

"We looked into Dumbledore's tomb, too late. The wand is gone."

"I thought it would be."

"Percy asked us not to go around telling people yet... He does believe us and all, he just thinks we shouldn't trouble them at the moment. I'm not sure about that, I mean, I sort of understand where he's coming from, but they have a right to know, don't they?"

"A single person tends to be intelligent on their own... however, you know what they say about a crowd. I'd say you might want to listen to your Minister, my dear. As long as the people who actually matter are aware that there is a problem, I see no reason why all the rest should be."

"Yeah... maybe more trouble than it's worth, isn't it?" Harry shrugged. "There's another thing, though..."

"And that would be?"

"Lavender is coming sometime later, I told her she could stay for another night... perhaps longer, if you can manage to stay out of her way. I'd really appreciate it if that could work."

"Why do you want her to stay?"

"She can't go home, and I'm worried about her. In an entirely platonic-friend-kind-of-way," he added at the dark wizard's expression, "She asked if she could stay for a while, and she has a point. This house is pretty damn safe, at least provided that you leave her alone. Can you do that?"

"Fine. I will stay out of her way, don't you dare lock me up again though. Anyway, Harry... I feel that I have to bring this up again. I know you don't want to hear it, but it matters to me, so I ask you to at least consider what I have to say. It would be most sensible of you to create a Horcrux, at least one, but I will not pressure you to do so. I wonder, though, if it is possible for us to come to a compromise?"

"What kind of compromise?"

"I realize that you wish to avoid having to kill, even though I don't see why would go out of your way for that. However, you cannot entirely eliminate the possibility that you may at some point have no choice but to do so. I have to say that I am amazed that nothing like this has ever happened so far, actually. My proposition is that you learn from me what is needed, and should it commence that you unforeseeably find yourself in any such situation, and you have for any reason taken a life, you will seize the opportunity and split your soul."

Harry took a moment to think before answering, trying to meet Voldemort's request to really consider his opinion. "I don't know..." he said then, the image of the Lord's child-like splinter of soul that he had seen at his King's Cross that was forever burned in his mind surfacing, "It is not only that somebody would have to die... I mean, it does do a great deal of damage to you, does it not?"

"Nothing that is not worth trading in for the benefits," the Lord said, meeting Harry's eyes. Beneath the cold, calculating expression in them, Harry could make out traces of desperation, a hint of a pleading look.

Harry's mouth was dry, and he bit his lip, feeling a bit lost and torn between his resolve not to let himself be at all negatively influenced by his prisoner, and the strong desire to please him that suddenly welled up in his chest.

"Please, Harry," Voldemort said and put a hand on top of Harry's, "Do it for me. I will even offer myself to be your Horcrux. Assuming you wish so, of course. It would be the safest bet. And as I said, agreeing with this does not require you killing anyone... this would merely be the plan for the case that for any reason you end up doing so."

There was a large, constricting lump in Harry's throat. He let his eyes wander through the room, not really taking anything in. Then, with great hesitation, he almost imperceptibly nodded his head.

"Will you promise?"

Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. "I promise."

With an ever-so-subtle smile, Lord Voldemort brought his Harry's hand to his icy thin lips, ghosting them over the smooth skin as if to seal their agreement.

##########################################################################################

Lavender took Harry's request to come late seriously. It was nearly midnight when she turned up, and Harry was still awake, although obviously dead on his feet. She guessed that he had not been able to sleep any better than she had the night before.

This time, he had made the living-room couch into a very adequate replacement for a bed, brought linen and blankets down for her.

"I've solved the problem," he told her, "You can stay for as long as you need to."

"Thank you," sighed Lavender in relief, "I won't be much of a burden, and I will be gone as soon as possible, alright?"

"That's okay, there was only this one thing I had to take care of first. That bathroom down the hall is yours for now."

The young woman nodded. "Anything else I should know?"

"Actually, yes... please don't ask me why, but always stay in the ground floor. Don't go anywhere else. If you need me and I'm upstairs, shout for me, but don't come looking. I know this sounds a bit strange, but just accept it, okay?"

Lavender tried not to let her confusion show too much, and nodded again. She was very grateful to Harry for allowing her to stay, and it was the least that she could do in return not to pry.

"That's great," said Harry, "apart from that, if you need anything from the kitchen or so, feel free to serve yourself. You don't mind if I go to bed now, do you? I'm pretty tired."

"You go to bed, I'll be fine. Merlin, tired is an understatement for how I'm feeling myself... Night, Harry."

"Night." Harry saluted to her and went upstairs.

"Are you quite sure I should stay completely away from her, though?" asked Voldemort once Harry had closed the bedroom door. He was sitting on the windowsill and looking out on the street. "How do you know she would not be pleased to have me to keep her company as well? You have not even asked her, have you?"

"Hardly." Harry sat down opposite Voldemort and rested his head against the cool glass of the window. He felt dazed, his head felt like it was packed with bricks and considering how physically exhausted he was, he should have been able to drop on the bed and fall asleep without delay. The catch was, he could not. Too many thoughts running through his head, mixed up and all at once.

He kept thinking about the promise that he had given the Lord. Granted, it would only apply under special circumstances that at this time, at least he hoped so, were unlikely to occur. He could not shake off the feeling, though, that he might have made a decision with very far-reaching consequences... He would not think about that now. He had no way of telling what was going to happen, or if anything much was going to happen at all, so he settled for a good old, proven and tested time and again method of his.

Just let it happen, and then think about what to do.

Moving slowly, he extended a hand towards his dead companion. Voldemort regarded it for a second in confusion before he took it into his own.

No spoken words were needed between them.

##########################################################################################

A/N: If anyone is wondering, the Ginny scenes still seem a bit pointless at the moment, but we can't let the little slut entirely out of our sight just yet. And neither can Antonia. ^_^


	15. Chapter 15

To EIEN07, more thank you's. XD LOL, those two falling in love in a girly way would be... like Harry/Ginny in canon. Yuck. Like Clarice falling for Krendler. Like Paris Hilton and Alice Cooper. Like Cartman being genuinely nice to Kyle. Like the cow eating the piranha. Like... point made, I guess. Anyway, Grindelwald is not really in this chapter, but you'll get to see more of my description of him soon, too.

#########################################################################################

Standstill, Asphyxiating

Chapter 15

"Thank you for the bathing oils and stuff, by the way," said Lavender, preparing herself a bowl of cereal. Harry had joined her for breakfast while Voldemort was waiting upstairs for her to leave.

"What are you talking about?" asked Harry, frowning.

"The things you put next to me last night," the other Auror said in a slow and clear voice as if she were talking to a child. "Thank you. Although you wouldn't have needed to get up just to bring me that, really. Or were you sleepwalking?" She laughed. "You look as if you had no idea what I'm talking about."

"Oh." Harry understood. His phantom must have gotten up at night and done... something. At least the Lord had stayed true to his word in that he had not let Lavender see him. "That, yeah, sure."

"What should we do about Cho and Julius now?" asked Lavender.

"I don't know," said Harry, "why do you think he kidnapped them, anyway? I mean, that must have had a reason."

Lavender shrugged and shook her head helplessly. "I know as much as you do."

"It does seem to be related to their work, though... perhaps there was something more to that empty room you came across."

"Well, it was empty, but that might have any reason. There was a kind of mold in the middle, though."

"A mold? You didn't say anything about that."

"I didn't think it mattered."

"All details matter. There's a mold in the Death Chamber... there was not an arch with a veil on it, though, was there?"

Lavender shook her head. "No such thing."

They were interrupted by a scratching noise at the door.

"What's that?" Lavender wondered.

"Oh, the cat..." Harry made up quickly, "Wait here, I'll take care of her. Still gotta feed her."

"I didn't know you had a cat, Harry," said Lavender, beaming, "I love cats."

"Yeah, mine is really shy, though... extremely scared of strangers, so you might not get to see her. She usually stays in my room."

"Oh..." Lavender looked a little sad. "Well, I'll be off in a minute, anyway, so see ya later."

"Take care." Harry left, opening the door only as far as he had to in order to slip through. Glaring, he grabbed Voldemort's arm and dragged him up the stairs in a rush and into the first room of the upper hall, his study.

"What the hell?" he demanded.

Voldemort regarded him with a disdainful look, demonstratively rubbing his arm. "Would you have preferred me to come in and say what I have to say?"

"Of course not, but any normal person would have waited."

"For you to leave with her and then return in - how many hours?"

"Oh, whatever... what is it?"

"I could not help but to overhear your conversation..." Harry snorted at this, earning himself another glare. Voldemort leaned against Harry's desk and continued, "You should let her show you a memory of that room with the mold, if she's not gone yet, go and get it now, then come back and I'll explain why."

"You have an idea, don't you?" asked Harry.

The dark wizard nodded, and Harry raced down the stairs, just in time to catch Lavender pulling on her coat. He held her back and asked for the memory, provisorily giving her a salad bowl to put it into. Lavender waited until Harry surfaced from the memory bowl.

"That's the same room, I think," he said, "Only without the veil..."

"The room where your godfather..." Lavender broke off, "Sorry."

"Never mind... yeah, that room."

"You know how there was apparently something that had gone missing, so do you think it could be that? But what would anyone need it for?"

"I don't know... You go to the Ministry now, and I'll also see if I can find anything out, okay?"

"You're not coming?"

"Maybe later... Kitty needs me now." And with that, Harry rushed back upstairs.

Lavender stared after him before she shrugged and left.

"Looks like that really is the Chamber of Death... or at least a room that looks a lot alike," Harry told Voldemort who had in the meantime taken a seat in Harry's chair. "So what do you think?"

"That this entire thing makes absolute sense now."

"How so?" Harry sat down on the edge of his desk, listening with interest.

"The Veil of Death has been gone for quite a while now, has it not? You told me about this when I was still locked up in that horribly restraining room... anyway, it absolutely fits with all the information you could give me. That was not enough for me to be able to read much out of it at the time, but in light of these new facts I would say that it was sufficient to be able to say with near certainty that it really was the Veil of Death that they managed to lose there. More like, that whoever helped Grindelwald to come back must have taken."

"How's that connected?"

"Do you know how the Veil of Death works, Harry?"

"You fall through it and you die."

"Yes, but that is not its only quality. Augustus Rookwood, my spy among the Unspeakables, told me some more. Basically, it is an open gate between the realms of life and death. From this side, it is more than easy to cross to the other side. As you said, you simply fall, or walk, through. However, from the other side... you would need a connection, such as a Horcrux. This was one possibility I considered for my rebirth, but in the end I thought it would be easier to get the ingredients I needed for the ritual Wormtail performed for me than to get access to the Veil, with only two servants that could not be allowed to be seen in public, and with one of whom being a spineless moron."

Harry laughed at that description of Wormtail.

"You would need at least one Horcrux, not only to hold up the connection to life, but also it would have to be there when you perform the ritual, and a sacrifice."

"What kind of sacrifice?"

"A human one. Your friend said that Grindelwald appeared very young now, did she not? They must have used a young person, then. They provide the body, see? You did not have that problem resurrecting me, because you still had my intact body, but they would have needed to make an exchange. Could have used anyone, really, even a muggle."

"So someone stole it to bring him back, then. And Cho and her husband..."

"Were working there, were they not? So either they have something to do with it and faked their disappearance, or they stumbled upon something and had to be silenced."

Harry chewed on his lip, taking this in. "Makes sense, indeed. So what should we do now?"

"What do you want to do? Keep yourself safe, the rest is not your responsibility."

"Of course it is, it's everyone's responsibility. People have to look out for each other, that's the only way things work."

"Primarily, people have to look out for themselves, Harry. They don't need you to destroy yourself saving them. And if they really are incapable of taking care of themselves, then they are not even worth it."

"Sure, you would see it that way."

"Harry... You have far more responsibility to me than to anyone else. That is more than enough. Don't let me down in favor of some common, replaceable people that are not even close to you. Trust me, the world is going to keep spinning even if you refrain from indulging in your urges to save it."

Harry scowled. He supposed Voldemort had a point about what Hermione had so fittingly called his 'people-saving-thing', but he just could not, and did not want to, see it with that much distance.

"I ask you, Harry... you have enough reason to hold me in higher regard than anyone else. There is nobody closer to you than me. So I ask you to act like it. Be there for me first of all, not for the entire rest of the planet."

"I'm not one of your Death Eaters," Harry said sullenly.

"I know you are not." Voldemort reached out to Harry, ran a hand across his back. "They were nothing but mere servants, lapdogs following my orders without question. You are much more special. You matter. None of the Death Eaters would ever have mattered to me enough to care so much about their safety."

"Yeah, I matter to you because I keep you alive."

"Would you believe me if I told you that you matter to me as a person?"

"No."

"There will be no point in saying that, then. Do think about it, though... Even if I was not so dependent on you, who else would I have that I see as worthy enough to touch me like I allow you to?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"Only you, Harry..." the Lord whispered, continuing to caress Harry's back, "Only ever you."

Harry said nothing, merely continued to chew his lip, all thoughts cleared from his head.

"Stay here?" asked Voldemort, "You don't have anything better to do, anyway, do you?"

Harry looked at him. "Fine."

"Good. Let's see... just how much do you know about Horcruxes, Harry?"

###########################################################################################

"Look, it worked! Ha!" gloated Julius, "Come to bed, honey."

"Wow," said Cho, "We seem to have rather nice captors. Kinda."

"Yeah, now the only thing that's missing is for them to let us out... or at least tell us what the hell they want from us."

Elena listened to the conversation from outside the room. She would like to tell them, apologize and let them out... but how could she know if they would be cooperative? She didn't feel much like finding out - if not, she would have to kill them, despite that she felt a sense of obligation to them. She had in a way pulled them into this, after all.

Karina tapped her on the shoulder. "You can't influence what happens to them, El," she said softly, "It is their decision. Let them make it."

"They're my prisoners," said Elena, "He gave me the responsibility for them. I'm not ready to do this... I think it's best if we wait a bit and treat them well, let them see we don't mean them harm if they don't mean any to us, you know?"

"As you said, El... they are your prisoners."

###########################################################################################

"Last time, the problems with Grindelwald concerned mostly the continent, not Britain... I'm hoping it will be the same now," Percy said.

"And if so, the people outside of Britain don't matter, or what?" Lavender raised an eyebrow.

"Of course they do. I spoke to the International Convention... they were rather skeptical, but really, it is up to them now what they make of it. We can only do what is best for us, and that means keeping up national safety first of all."

Lavender frowned, but even though she only partly agreed, she concluded that the Minister had a point she could hardly argue.

###########################################################################################

A few weeks later, Harry excused himself almost immediately after coming home only to tell Voldemort that he was going to meet with Ron and Hermione in the Three Broomsticks and perhaps come back very late. Since their discovery about Grindelwald being back, things had gone rather smoothly. Neither had any new problems come up, nor had any old ones been solved, except for Lavender finding a new apartment and warding it with Harry's assistance. There had also been a wave of goblin flu affecting almost everyone in the Ministry, with the exception of Harry, which had caused a large series of running jokes about his infamous luck.

Both Harry and Lavender had fully complied with Percy's request and told nobody of what they knew, although in Harry's case that had taken a lot of intense talking-at from Voldemort.

"Madame Rosmerta is still damn hot for her age, don't you think?" whispered Ron to Harry while the barmaid was taking Hermione's order.

Harry nodded absently. "Yeah, nice," he whispered back.

That particular conversation died immediately as soon as Hermione turned back to them. "How are you dealing, Harry?" she asked sympathetically, leaning forward.

"Dealing, with what?" asked Harry, initially confused, "Oh - you mean about Ginny? I'm okay, let's not talk about that... anyway, how is she? Is she still seeing Dean?"

"Yeah, they're getting pretty close," said Ron, still squinting out of the corner of his eyes at the barmaid's behind.

"I'm happy for them," Hermione added, "Did you know... Just last week, Dean asked her to come with him to Marseilles over Christmas, together with the children, even."

"Wow, Christmas, that's soon..." Harry said, "So is she going, then?"

"Yes," said Hermione, "Sorry I told you, if it bothers you..."

"It doesn't bother him, right, Harry?" Ron looked at Harry in search for affirmation. "He agreed that Ginny should be happy with somebody else."

"Exactly," said Harry, "I'm glad she has Dean now."

Hermione looked a bit doubtful, so Harry added quickly, "What are they doing in Marseilles, anyway?"

"You know how Dean is an artist now?" asked Hermione, "He has a job there, apparently portraying an entire family..."

"Sounds good," said Harry.

"They are some foreign relatives of our beloved Malfoys, though," Ron informed Harry disdainfully, "Most likely rich, stuck-up purebloods as well..."

"You don't even know them, Ron," scolded Hermione, "They might not be as bad as the Malfoys we know. Shows how qualified Dean is, though... if an old pureblood family is willing to engage a known muggleborn for the job, he must be good."

"He is," said Ron, "Always was, but he's a real pro now. He showed me some of his works when I brought Lily over."

"Why did you bring Lily to Dean?" Harry asked.

"Had to go to work, and Ginny was at Dean's... so really, I brought her to Ginny."

Hermione's eyes turned full of pity as she addressed Harry again. "You miss them, don't you? The children?"

Harry looked down and played with his fingernails, the same way the Lord sometimes did when trying to act unfazed. "Yeah, kinda. It's okay, though... I know Ginny is a great mother."

"I know you made a mistake, Harry," insisted Hermione, "And you probably feel really guilty about it, but she can't keep them away from you if you really want to see them."

Ron glared at Hermione, and lightly kicked her shin under the table to make her stop.

"I said it is okay, Hermione," repeated Harry tiredly, "You don't know exactly what happened between her and me. You were not there. If she wants me on the other side of the planet from them, I understand, and I will not make this any more complicated or hurt her any more."

Hermione pursed her lips and glared back at Ron for kicking her, but she saw that there was no point in pursuing this matter any further.

"How are you celebrating Christmas?" she asked Harry instead.

"Oh, home alone with me, myself and I, I guess."

"Bullshit, you can come celebrate with us," said Ron, "You're still practically family."

"Thanks, Ron... I really appreciate that, but I think this year I'd really rather be on my own." Harry would not at all have minded another Christmas with the Weasleys, but he was certain that the Lord would mind very much. On the subject... he still had to come up with an idea of what to give him as a present.

"Okay," said Ron disappointedly, "If you change your mind, though, the offer still stands."

##########################################################################################

When Harry came home, he found Voldemort already asleep, which was a very rare thing. Usually the Lord tended to sleep only when Harry did.

Harry turned a dimmed nightlight on and gingerly sat down on the edge of the bed, taking care not to disturb the dark wizard's sleep. He liked watching him sleep. These were the only times he could see his lover without the guards he constantly kept up during every waking moment.

Voldemort had once again put Harry's clothes on, and was curled up more on top of the sheets than under them, clutching the pillow tightly. He seemed to have subconsciously sensed Harry's presence, because he muttered something unintelligible.

Harry leaned closer and strained his ears to understand.

"... did it all for you, my Harry..." he could make out, "... you don't understand... nothing... mine..."

Harry sighed lowly, crawled to the side of the slight figure and pulled the sheets over both of them.

##########################################################################################

"I didn't notice you coming," said Voldemort the next morning.

"You were already sleeping, so I decided not to wake you," Harry told him, "You're sort of cute when you sleep, do you know that?"

"Ah... and when I am awake, what about then?"

Harry grinned. "Not really, no."

"What makes the difference?" Voldemort seemed genuinely interested.

"This whole evil-bastard-attitude of yours... you know, it sorta goes missing."

"And that is a good thing, I take it?"

"Yep." Harry pecked Voldemort on the cold lips and jumped out of bed to get ready for another day. The Lord immediately followed, slipping back into his routine of watching Harry's every step.

###########################################################################################

Harry left the Ministry early that day to wander through the Wizarding Alleys and find something to give Voldemort for Christmas. He bought several new black robes, making a point of picking only the finest, most comfortable materials.

Then he continued to browse through the other shops, figuring that he also needed something more special, or more personal.

More books, harmless kinds of potions ingredients, any other kind of everyday items... Harry gave those things to Voldemort whenever he asked, anyway. So what he needed was something that Harry would not normally give him...

Harry chuckled when he thought that the best present he could give the Lord would be to let him leave the house. He even considered that option for a moment, in light of how cooperatively Voldemort had been acting recently, but he quickly discarded that idea. Not worth the risk, although Harry even enjoyed playing with the thought.

A pet? There was nothing concretely speaking against that, but there was something about the idea that did not go well with Harry. If he was truly honest with himself, he liked having Voldemort only to himself. He didn't want to share his lover's full attention, not even with a pet.

This was not one of Harry's more noble traits shining through, but he felt much too good being the only thing the other wizard had left.

He pulled the hood of his cloak deep into his face when he took the turn into Knockturn Alley, slowly sauntering down the street and looking at the displays in the dusty windows. He nearly walked past Borgin and Burkes', but then stopped and decided to look inside. It wouldn't surprise him if they had something interesting in store.

The old Borgin was there sitting behind the couter, sparing Harry only a glance as he entered and then ignored him, sensing that his customer did not desire his services yet. Harry looked around indecisively, trying to figure out the purpose of the displayed items.

A rusty, old set of cutlery caught his eye. It was placed on a square-cut pillow, with a sign next to it that had fallen over. Harry wondered why a dark artifacts shop would sell something like this, and why he should not touch it. He reached out to pick a fork up and examine it more closely.

Too late, Borgin called out, "Don't touch that!"

Harry quickly put the fork back down, turned around and asked, "Why not?"

Borgin sprung up from his seat and rushed over, all color gone from his face. "Merlin, you - you touched it..." he stammered horrifiedly.

"So?" asked Harry, confused. He supposed that picking anything in this shop up was indeed a potentially bad idea, but nothing had happened... had it? Harry put the sign next to the cutlery back into place. 'DO NOT TOUCH, POISONS AT SKIN CONTACT', it read.

"Ooops..." said Harry sheepishly.

"I don't get it," breathed Borgin, "You touched it... You should be dead..."

"I feel fine," Harry told him, which was true, "Should I better go to the hospital? What is that, anyway?"

"Goblin-made cutlery, imbibed with Basilisk venom and acid..." muttered Borgin, still shell-shocked, "How...? It's highly deadly, how can you be fine?"

Harry shrugged.

Borgin looked at him as if expecting him to keel over dead at any second. "And you're... still feeling alright?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Er... yes?" Harry was a bit scared now. "So far, at least..."

"Hm... if nothing happened yet, I don't think it will," said Borgin, "I don't get it, though... You did pick it up... that was not just my imagination, was it?"

"Yes... but only for a second."

"That should still have killed you... sorry about the warning sign, by the way... didn't know it had fallen over."

Harry waved it off. "Never mind, nothing happened after all... I hope. Guess I was really lucky there."

"Really lucky... that was a miracle, that was." Only now did Borgin really look at Harry's face. His eyes went wide again. "Harry Potter," he breathed.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I know what my name is, thank you very much," he told Borgin coldly.

The old man regained his composure. "My apologies, sir... I did not expect to see you here in my shop... is there a reason why you are here, anything I can help you with?"

"Not at this time," said Harry, "I am merely looking around. If I should require your assistance, I will tell you so."

"Of course, sir," Borgin said, evidently relieved that Harry had not come on duty, and scurried back to his chair behind the counter.

"That somewhat explains it, at least..." Harry heard him mutter to himself, "Never dies..."

Highly tempted to roll his eyes again, Harry continued to look around.

"What are these for?" he wondered a few minutes later, pointing at a glass full of what looked like white leeches.

Borgin looked up. "You touch them with your wand and put them on somebody's skin while they're distracted, they'll eat themselves into the flesh and you can track them."

"Ah, okay... don't people notice if something eats its way into them?"

"Not those... they numb the immediate area, and it's actually more as if they melt flowingly into the flesh."

"Okay... I think I'll take a couple of those, but I'm still looking for something else."

"Anything in particular that you need?"

"Not really... I'm looking for a present for someone, I just haven't got a clue what I should take."

"Someone with a taste for the darker side of magic, then, if you are looking here?"

"Yes." Harry didn't feel like elaborating.

"A friend, if I may ask?"

"Something like that."

"Not my concern, I understand," the shopkeeper said and scratched his head, "Hm, let me think..."

"I would like something original," Harry told him.

"Wait a moment," Borgin went into the back room, presumably to fetch something.

Harry waited. Borgin had already been gone for about five minutes when the door opened, and another customer entered, purposefully striding over to the counter without taking notice of Harry, who, dressed entirely in black, was practically merging with the shadows of the cabinets that he was standing in between.

Harry would have recognized that platinum blonde head anywhere. "Oi, Malfoy!" he called.

Draco startled, and whirled around. "Potter?" he asked, taken aback, "What are you doing here?"

"Hm... what could I be doing here?" Harry pretended to think hard. "Shopping, maybe?"

"Right," Draco sneered, and leaned against the counter. "I could have guessed that much, I just didn't expect to see Saint Potter in such a shady place. Go ahead, then, I'll wait till you're done."

"I wasn't going to hold you up," said Harry in a haughty manner that would have done his lover proud, "Borgin is looking for something, I think, but apart from that... it is polite of you to wait for me to be done first, I have to admit, but not at all necessary."

Draco clenched his jaw, nodded jerkily but remained standing at the counter, pointedly looking into the other direction. That did nothing to dampen Harry's mood, and he merrily proceeded to examine the contents of a showcase.

"Wife left you, didn't she, Potter?"

"Yep," Harry said cheerfully.

"Finally came to your senses, then? Took you long enough. Or was it the Weaselette that had the glorious inspiration to run away and cause even more shame first? The papers were not all-too clear about that."

Harry was spared an answer when Borgin reappeared.

"Good day, Mr Malfoy," the old man said to Draco, "I will be there for you in a moment." He turned to Harry. "And as for you, Mr Potter, thank you for your patience... would this serve your purpose?"

##########################################################################################

A/N: About the scene at the end and the (mild) hostility between Harry and Malfoy, I am aware that after DH they are not strictly enemies the way they used to be, but the two will never be the best of friends, either.


End file.
